Everything's complicated even those things that seem flat in their bleakness or sadness.
I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character I cleave the character in half on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar.
Death used to announce itself in the thick of life but now people drag on so long it sometimes seems that we are reaching the stage when we may have to announce ourselves to death. It is as though one needs a special strength to die and not a final weakness.