Dead leaf

I assume it is dead. It’s actually hard to tell.

Consider a beautiful rose in a vase on your kitchen table. Lovely at first, slowly it begins to droop and wither, and eventually its petals dry up and drop. At that point surely it is dead. But was it alive when it looked so healthy? Was it not dead as soon as it was cut? How could it remain alive after it had been severed from its branch?

Or consider a tree that bears no leaves and looks as dead as dead can be. But then an arborist discovers that the core is still producing sap. It won’t recover, it looks dead, but is it? Does it make any difference?

It may be that death may be more like a light dimmer than a light switch, a process rather than a single event. Even human beings die slowly, with lots of functions and organs failing slowly and, I guess, in pretty predictable sequence.

When does a person start dying? Is it when irremediable sickness kicks in? Is it when we reach that age (what? Middle-age? Earlier?) when cells begin to repair themselves more slowly and less efficiently or not at all? Does it begin when we stop growing? Can it be that death begins at birth?