I Dont Know if Death is Funny

"You have to have a very dark sense of humor, to survive in the EMS profession." Words from my EMT instructor, good ol' Connie. She explained this to us on my first day of class. She told us that we will see horrific things, that we will have to deal with things that aren't healthy for any one person to deal with. She told us that being able to laugh about it, is the only way to stay sane, as an EMT.

I realized later on that everyone in this profession lives by that rule. Phrases such as "she was deader than shit", aren't uncommon among most of the EMT's that help teach my class. None of them are even phased by death anymore. They talk about the death of a once living, breathing human being like the rest of us might talk about the football game last night.

I decided on my very first week in that class, that I never want to become one of those people who laugh at death. 

It was just a few days ago though, after a wise crack from one of my instructors about a past patient dying in a drunk driving accident, did I realize that, I too, was becoming like them. The whole class thought it was pretty witty, and I was mid-laugh before I even realized what i was doing.

I was laughing at the death of a girl, who at one point had a whole life ahead of her, a girl who has a mother and a father, and brothers and sisters. I laughed when I should have considered the look on her mothers face when she found out her daughter was killed. I should have considered the pain her friends would feel, when they received that dreaded phone call, I should have considered the tears that would be shed at her funeral, I should have considered her family, and the anguish they felt when, one moment their daughter was pulling out of the drive-way, and the next, they were lowering her body into the ground. I should have considered those things, but instead, I laughed.

I dont want to be that person. I don't want to be that person who is immune to the reality of death. But I don't want to give up my dream of working in the medical profession either.
And I don't have an answer right now, I just don't know.