Born in Detroit and raised in a Catholic household, Victor M. Sweeney dealt with death from an early age. His older sister passed away before he was born and Sweeney’s family regularly visited her grave. He remembers fighting with his two younger brothers over who got to clean the headstone. Along with subsequent deaths in his extended family, Sweeney’s early exposure to death made it less of a taboo topic in his household. ″I really don’t fear death,” he says, coming from what he describes as a