In this essay, I tell my personal experience of my therapist’s sudden death, linking that stunning loss to my development as a writer, and also to a subject long-neglected: the analyst’s mortality. The profession’s striking evasion compounded my need to understand what the loss could mean in relation to psychoanalysis itself. Practical and ethical contradictions within our discipline can be represented by the double meaning of “mortal:” The analyst is vulnerable (he or she can die) and also fallible (he or she can err). The analyst’s mortality in both of these senses underlies the work at every moment – a robot or angel can’t do it. That same mortal nature, therapeutically powerful, also carries the potential for destruction. Thus, I was led to consider the issue of unethical behavior across a range, from mis-steps to crimes. Clarity about the loss and its nature has made writing, for me, a form of mourning.