I am often accused of talking about death and dying all the time. I really don’t do it be a downer. In fact, it helps me get out of whatever depression, or funk, or fear, I am in at a given moment. I think about death, and realize I get to breath and walk around another day. Consider how you would feel after a near death experience. Many say that everything tastes, smells and feels better after such an event, because we realize how fragile our lives are. We all die. Get over it. Our spouses die. Our friends die. Nature decides when it is our time. Marcus Aurelius, a Roman Emperor who had his own problems during life, understood that death was a natural progression in life. You don’t have to believe in an afterlife to understand that life ends. Why worry about it? Yes, we feel emotions and grief at the passing of a loved one. But, over time, we begin to understand that nobody or nothing could have prevented it. Sooner or later, it comes to us all. Marcus Aurelius’ last writings are a wonderful way to look at it; I hope I face my death with the same grace.

“You’ve lived as a citizen in a great city. Five years or a hundred—what’s the difference? The laws make no distinction.
And to be sent away from it, not by a tyrant or a dishonest judge, but by Nature, who first invited you in—why is that so terrible?
Like the impresario ringing down the curtain on an actor:
“But I’ve only gotten through three acts . . . !”
Yes. This will be a drama in three acts, the length fixed by the power that directed your creation, and now directs your dissolution. Neither was yours to determine.
So make your exit with grace—the same grace shown to you.”
 
Marcus Aurelius – 180 A.D. Marcusrepeat