By Jen Moss
As first responders, we live closer to death than most people. It becomes part of the job from the very beginning. From responding to calls for service, managing violent crime scenes, and dealing with tragic accidents, death comes with the territory.
A in Psychology Today makes this even more explicit:
鈥淔irst responders are constantly exposed to death and trauma. Sometimes this is the result of the deaths of those they are trying to rescue and at other times it is the unexpected loss of one of their own, another responder. We know that grief is a part of all our lives. It is the emotion most associated with loss. However, for first responders there is often not enough time to grieve one death before there is another. Multiple deaths when unprocessed are referred to as cumulative grief and unprocessed grief.鈥�
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In the understatement of the century, a by the Center for the Study of Traumatic Death states, 鈥淚t may be difficult to prepare yourself mentally for what you will see and do鈥� as a first responder. No matter how many times we encounter death, some moments stay with us longer than others.
Too many funerals
I spent more than 20 years in law enforcement and have certainly seen my fair share of death, both on and off the job. As I write this, I just left the memorial service for a former colleague. This is just one of many I have already attended; there will be many more yet to come. Even after more than two decades in this profession, attending funerals never seems to get easier. The only thing that changes is how frequently they occur.
The first funeral that truly impacted me was that of a college friend of mine. Mike was only 27 when he lost his battle with leukemia. I remember standing at his open casket, looking at his body covered in makeup and thinking, 鈥淭his looks nothing like Mike.鈥� In that moment, I realized that the soul 鈥� the true essence of a person 鈥� is long gone before the body is laid to rest. By the time Mike passed, I had already been a police officer for two years and had responded to multiple death calls. But losing Mike changed how I looked at death. It impacted me in a way that responding to a crime scene never had. It made death personal.
Standout cases
There were others, of course, but some of the deaths I witnessed as a part of the job felt different. One case from early in my career was of a young man, also in his twenties. A sex worker robbed him, stabbed him with a steak knife, and left him in his car to bleed out while she went on a shopping spree with her boyfriend. At first, it felt like any other major crime scene 鈥� secure the perimeter, wait for the homicide detectives to arrive, write the report and then move on to the next call. But this case ended up different.
I happened to know the lead detective on the case and he allowed me to shadow him and watch the investigation unfold. Eventually, a taxi driver came forward with information about the suspect, and by the next day, that same driver recognized the perpetrator again and called us. She was arrested, charged and eventually convicted. I testified at her trial, which gave me a strange sense of satisfaction, knowing that good police work had brought justice for someone whose life had been stolen. It felt good to have done the job right.
I saw the case through from beginning to end and it carried a strange sense of closure. But not all deaths feel that way. Some stay with you for all the wrong reasons.
Hitting close to home
In addition to my career in public safety, I am also a mother. When you鈥檙e a parent, your worst fear is something terrible happening to one of your children. As first responders, we see so many terrible things that we tend to want to swaddle our kids in bubble wrap and protect them from any harm. When they are hurt or injured, we feel it deeply. Sometimes the calls we respond to hit closer to home than we would like.
One of the most devastating cases I ever investigated involved a three-year-old boy. At the time, I was supervising our investigative unit responsible for handling child abuse and neglect, including child death cases. A property owner discovered the boy鈥檚 inside a small toy box at a rental home the family had abandoned. He had been starved to death. At the autopsy, we learned he was wearing clothes meant for an 18-month-old child.
The thought of treating a child in such a way was almost unfathomable. However, we grit our teeth and worked the investigation. We interviewed their other children 鈥� traumatized kids who had witnessed their brother鈥檚 slow, painful death and then watched (and smelled) his body rot. We arrested the parents, and several years later, followed the proceedings that led to their ultimate convictions. But no arrest or conviction could erase the reality of what that little boy suffered.
It took me years to fully understand why that case hit me so hard. Eventually, I realized the boy had been only three weeks older than my own son. Without really knowing or understanding it, I had been projecting his life onto the life of the tiny victim.
Sometimes, you can compartmentalize. Sometimes, you cannot.
Losing one of your own
Some of the most emotionally intense and unforgettable losses are line-of-duty deaths. There鈥檚 a unique kind of grief that comes when one of your own dies in uniform. Other agencies show up to show support and pay their respects. Members of the community line the streets. Flags are lowered, bagpipes play, and even those who never met the fallen feel the weight of the loss.
The in the line of duty doesn鈥檛 just shake the department, it also has an impact across the entire public safety community. And so does another kind of death that nobody wants to talk about: suicide. While not always classified as a 鈥渓ine-of-duty鈥� death, the loss of a colleague to suicide brings its own kind of devastation. We feel deep grief and sadness for their family and a profound desire to understand what led them to believe there was no other option. These losses leave behind haunting questions about what we might have missed, what we could have done, and how we can do better.
These moments are deeply sobering, yet they also reveal how strongly this profession binds us together. We show up not just to mourn, but also to stand together, to honor, to support and to remind each other that no one in this profession carries the weight of service alone. Also, these tragedies serve as a reminder that, despite the uniform, the training, and the sense of purpose, we are not invincible. We are not bulletproof.
Opportunities for introspection
And yet, not all losses are public or dramatic. Some come quietly, after retirement, when the crowds are smaller, but the impact feels just as deep. It was one of those funerals that led me to reflect on all of this. A former colleague lost his battle with cancer, a cancer most likely linked to his fire department service. He had been retired for only three years. He鈥檇 spent a lifetime working toward the promise of retirement 鈥� birthdays, holidays, family time and personal health 鈥� only to have that time cut painfully short. It made me think about how many of us spend decades sacrificing everything for the job, only to run out of time before we ever get to enjoy it.
Death affects us all differently. Sometimes it brings sadness. Sometimes anger. Sometimes even a strange sense of pride for a job well done. But every death offers a moment for self-reflection and a reminder that our time is not guaranteed. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that every death offers an opportunity to confront our own mortality. We must ask ourselves whether we are living in a way that honors the time we still have.
Are we caring for our health? Are we investing in the relationships that truly matter? Are we prioritizing the things we claim are most important? Or are we putting them off for 鈥渟omeday鈥�? Death does not get easier. It simply becomes more familiar.
Gut-check on humanity
The deaths we experience as first responders shape us in profound and often unpredictable ways. Sometimes they make us feel invincible 鈥� like we could survive anything. Other times, they lay us bare, exposing the tender parts of our humanity we work so hard to shield.
The constant presence of death in a first responder鈥檚 life brings a kind of dual awareness: of how fragile life truly is, and of how quickly it can change. This awareness, if we let it, can become a powerful invitation 鈥� not to despair, but to recalibrate. To take a hard look at how we鈥檙e living and whether it aligns with what we claim to value most. To make our health, our families, and our lives the real priorities, and to appreciate the gift of time while we still have it. To remind us to live before it鈥檚 too late.
We can鈥檛 keep death from coming. But we can let it teach us how to live. We can choose to honor the lives of those we鈥檝e lost by living more intentionally 鈥� by making space for the people and priorities that matter. We can make our own lives more meaningful by caring for our bodies and spirits, and by finding the courage to say 鈥測es鈥� to the life we want, not just the life we feel obligated to endure.
If death is the teacher, then let its lesson be that time is a gift, not a guarantee, and that the way we live now 鈥� today 鈥� is the only legacy we can truly control.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jen Moss is a retired police lieutenant with over 21 years of experience in law enforcement, having served in patrol, investigations, emergency management, training and professional standards. She is a graduate of the Police Executive Research Forum鈥檚 Senior Management Institute for Police (Class 76) and holds a bachelor鈥檚 degree in public administration with an emphasis in criminal justice, as well as a master鈥檚 in public administration 鈥� both from the University of Arizona. Jen is a marketing campaign manager with Lexipol and the proud wife of a fire captain.
