Deathday

The placing of the dragon is inevitable: a man can but die upon his death-day.

"Is it her deathday?" I asked. "Nope," he said.

It only just dawned on me that intrinsically it felt better to honor her on her birthday rather than her deathday. It has always struck me as odd that more people remember the day Elvis or John Lennon died than the dates they were born.

[…] just then we needed a tenth man and needed him badly, because one of us had a deathday to observe and wanted to say the mourner's prayer.