Quote 37
The Colonel and I are walking back to our dorm room in silence. I am staring at the ground beneath me. I cannot stop thinking that she is dead, and I cannot stop thinking that she cannot possibly be dead. People do not just die. (thedayafter.42)
But they do, and Miles knows they do. What Miles is experiencing here is what many people who have loved ones die experience: a sense of disbelief that death could touch his life. And Miles realizes this later on—he acknowledges that he and other teenagers are indestructible in his final essay for the Old Man because their spirits live on. So then we have to wonder whether the statement "people do not just die" is true because we question what death really is and means.
Quote 38
I couldn't believe what I had done to him, his eyes glittering green like Alaska's but sunk deep into dark sockets, like a green-eyed, still-breathing ghost, and don't no don't don't die, Alaska. Don't die. (6after.11)
The death Miles is referring to here is physical, yes, but also relates much more to the living than to Alaska. The guilt Miles feels regarding his role in her death would dissipate if only Alaska were alive, and here we see death tied to the suffering of the living.
Quote 39
"I was just thinking—Why do you run head-on into a cop car with its lights on? and then I thought, Well, she hated authority figures."
The Colonel laughed. "Hey, look at that. Pudge made a funny!" (14after.15-16)
One way people cope with death is to approach it with humor because it decreases the power and the pain that death—and suffering—can bring. What about Miles's personality, though, makes the joke he makes a little surprising?