On June 10, around 10 a.m., my husband and I were walking to one of the malls in Graz when a police car passed us. And then another one. And another one. Then an ambulance. A little later another police car. Then another ambulance. And another police car. At least 15 police cars and six ambulances had passed us by the time we entered the mall. I called up Mama and asked her to turn on the radio to find out what was going on. They didn’t say much, only to avoid the street Dreierschuetzengasse, which was 1.5 miles away from us. A while later she called again, saying there had been a school shooting. Within seven minutes, the shooter had killed nine students and himself. A 10th person, his former teacher, succumbed to her injuries later in the hospital. When a tragedy like this happens, lots of thoughts come to mind. The most dominant one for me is a person’s inevitable impermanence.

As I write this, I think of Oma. Although she reads the sentences I write (she can’t hear well) and has been talking a bit more lately, I’m not sure she really knows who I am or understands what I write. She doesn’t seem to be interested in anything and basically just sits there, staring into nothingness. To me, without knowing what’s going on in her head, she looks like a woman waiting for death, literally, as her body slowly decays.

Two years ago I wrote about Austrians having to pay regularly for the right to a grave (typically paid by your descendants). Otherwise that grave would be given to strangers and your name would be erased. Oma has outlived her husband, siblings and only child, as well as friends and neighbors. With only Mama and me left, no one will be around to remember her once we’re dead. And since my strand of the family will die out with me, our family grave will eventually be removed (and yes, several bodies share one grave). I didn’t use to like that thought much — it would be as if we’d never existed. I’ve changed my mind on it though. To me life is a cycle; creatures come, creatures go. If it was me, you could just distribute my ashes anywhere. But I promised my dad to be in the same grave with him, and I’ll keep that promise. Ten years after my death, however, when no one will be left to pay the upcoming fee, the grave will be given to someone else. And I’m okay with that. After all, I’m only one of eight billion people (and the number keeps growing) and what good would it do anyway, if people walked by my grave 200 years later, read my name, and said, “Daniela Ribitsch? No clue who that is.”

Sometimes people tell me I’m too young to think about death. I don’t think so. The people I love are getting older and older. The next one to go will be Oma. That said, family members have died who weren’t supposed to die so early, and newspapers are filled with premature deaths. In June lightning killed three hikers when an unexpected thunderstorm surprised them and they couldn’t take shelter in time. And a few days later another person was killed by lightning. Or two days after the school shooting a plane in India crashed and only one person — the passenger in seat 11A — survived. I’m healthy, yes. Yet my last day could be on the airplane when I return to the U.S. in a few weeks. Or I could be walking in downtown Graz and another person could drive a car into the crowd, as happened in 2015.

In the capital of Bolzano in South Tyrol — a beautiful province in Northern Italy combining Austrian and Italian cultures — is the Oetzi Museum, which is home to Oetzi, also called “The Iceman,” a murdered man from the late Neolithic period found in the Oetztaler Alps at the Austrian-Italian border. I saw his remains displayed in a small window and couldn’t help shivering as visitor after visitor looked at him and some even ignored the sign saying, “No photos.” – I’d rather be forgotten than exposed like him.

Who will also be remembered, grave or not, is the school shooter from Graz. Even as interest fades over time, he’ll always be remembered as a monster. Remembered will also be the victims who were — without reason and much too early — so brutally taken from this world. If they’d been able to live their lives and hadn’t become part of the first school shooting in the history of Graz and the worst one in the history of Austria, their names might have been erased after their deaths just like the names of so many others.

When I see Oma, I wonder if it really is so much better to become that old, or if it’s actually better to die at a younger age and unexpectedly. If I do get to be as old as Oma, I hope to also be dement to not have to watch my own decay. And since my ashes can’t be scattered due to my promise, I want them in a biodegradable urn, so by the time they remove my gravestone I’ll have mixed with the soil and become the foundation for new life to form.

Dr. Daniela Ribitsch, a native of Austria, is a resident of Lock Haven.