Have you ever seen a dead person in real life?

I have on several occasions, but without a doubt, the first time was the worst.

It was during freshman year at college. My dorm was an eight floor building on 19th Street and Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, DC, just three blocks from the White House.
One of the maintenance men jumped off the roof.
We heard a sickening thud, ran outside to see what had happened, heard him softly say, "Help me," and die before the police and paramedics arrived.

It was extremely disturbing. Fortunately, Student Health Services offered free counselling to those who wanted it.

Yes, as a kid I went to my grandfather’s and great-grandmother’s funerals. And as an adult I went to my husband’s friend’s funeral; he had overdosed.

It is sort of shocking to look at a dead body. The waxy-looking skin. The almost-sleeping look.

I had stayed at work late one night, probably around 2002, coming home around 2am. I drove the short route though a bad neighborhood, when I came up on a police roadblock. As they waved me on through I noticed that a man had been shot at a bus stop and his body was in the right lane of the road. There is a big difference between a living person lying down and a dead body and it just made me feel kind of sick and sad thinking about someone whose life was ended so brutishly and cruelly in the middle of the road. I always assumed it was a gang killing, but I suppose it also could have been the police.

Yes; open casket, family.