When someone is clearly alive we tend to understand.

We also tend to understand when someone is clearly dead and ready to bury.  There is no brain function, there is no movement in the body (including no breathing) and there is no flow of blood (the heart is not beating).  Other signs of life are gone as well.  the body is cold, dry, pale, either stiff with rigor mortis or flaccid.

Dying is a period of time between living and death. … Read the rest