As I was folding laundry the other night, I realized something about amputees and prosthetic limbs.

It’s true that a lot of amputees don’t like using prosthetics because they’ve already adjusted without it, and adjusting back to having it is an unnecessary hassle. But I think the reason prosthetics seem more like an inconvenience than helpful tool is because we can’t control the mechanical body part we attach to ourselves.

In my experience using a myo electric prosthetic hand, I’ve had the hand completely detach from the arm and roll across the floor; I’ve had the battery die while grocery shopping at Mejier; fingers have stopped moving; different functions such as only having the thumb move have turned on accidentally; and magnets on the sleeve and inside the arm have fallen off.

It can be uncontrollable and essentially unreliable.

Don’t get me wrong, my prosthetic is very useful for certain things—like folding laundry, for example. It’s just difficult to ever think about wearing it constantly when I’m always worried about what it might do next.

It might just lose the grip on a plate or cup, and I’ll spill everything. Or stop working completely while I’m trying to take notes during an interview. It’s frustrating losing control of it out of no where. That certainly didn’t happen with my real hand.

That being said, I’m grateful that technology has come far enough for me to be able to simply move muscles on my arm and have the hand open and close. I’m confident there will be even more improvements in the future too, so I know the functionality will get better. While it is heavy, not waterproof and larger than my right hand, it certainly can do a lot.

I’m looking forward to seeing prosthetic limbs inch closer and closer to being the real thing. I think the more like actual body parts prosthetics become, the more amputees will use them and stop seeing them as an unnecessary hassle. The myo electric is my second prosthetic hand as it is, and I definitely use it more than I used my body powered one.

Despite the imperfections and annoyances, it’s always rewarding when I can switch it from the three finger grip to the thumb only grip to all fingers being used. Working through the glitches of technology isn’t easy, but it’s easier than folding laundry with one hand.

Covering crime is not exactly an uplifting job. It doesn’t leave me feeling cheery or like the world is perfect.

Sometimes it’s not pretty. I’ve seen and heard things that I wish I hadn’t—like images of injured people, details of a car crash or the names of files containing child pornography on someone’s computer.

It can be difficult to cover, but it’s even harder for the people closest to the situation.

In the past few weeks, I’ve written about the unexpected deaths of two young adults. One involved the murder of a 28-year-old woman who was beaten to death. The other was a 19-year-old man who died in a crash on the interstate after he drove the wrong way and collided with a semi-truck.

After recently spending more than an hour talking to the family of the teenager, I was told I have the most depressing beat. At that moment, I couldn’t really disagree. I had spent most of my recent days speaking to people who were grieving their lost loved ones, interviewing coroners about cause of death and researching domestic violence.

But after spending about six hours between interviewing family members and writing a story remembering this local 19-year-old, I felt strange reassurance that I’m in the right career field. I wasn’t annoyed that it was 10 p.m. and I had started work that day at 8 a.m. I smiled with confidence that I had portrayed the teen just as his family had seen him.

When a loved one dies unexpectedly and in the public eye, they deserve a good story. A person shouldn’t be remembered just by, “the kid who died on the interstate” or “the woman who was beaten to death.” These people deserve to be remembered for more—like loving the color purple and playing with Hot Wheels as a kid.

The interviews are slightly uncomfortable, the conversations aren’t short and the stories aren’t quick to write, and that’s OK with me. I take my time, handle it with extra care and hope the family doesn’t regret their decision. When it comes to something like this, there’s a heightened responsibility to get everything right. It’s not like that person who I’m writing about can call me and tell me I was wrong.

I wrote these articles and kind of held my breath, wondering if I’d hear from family members again. Luckily, I was later told that the mom of the 19-year-old said she was happy she talked to me and one of our photographers. The family of the 28-year-old woman said it was helpful to talk about her. I let out a sigh of relief. Covering death might be depressing, but there’s not much more satisfying then knowing I honored the deceased in a way that pleased their surviving family and friends.