Chris, at Waeguk is not a soup, has a good piece on a subject most ignore hoping it will go away.

That said, how about we talk death a bit?

This is probably the first time I've written about those times, that I can recall, although I've told the stories many times since they first came rushing back when I was in my early twenties. The deaths in my family, coming for the most part as they did early in my life, may have given me a slightly different perspective on it than some. Although I love life, with a great, chest-thumping passion, I am...matter-of- fact...about dying. I understand the grief and loss that people feel, but I simply can't get terribly worked up over it, anymore. This comes not from being hard-hearted, as some have assumed over the years - old friends will attest that I'm nothing if not self-indulgently sentimental - but from a baked-in knowledge, not intellectual but deep in my guts, that death is at the end of the road for all of us, each and every one, and what is, is good.

I've tried to live as many lives as possible in the time allotted to me, however long that time may be, and I think this awareness of an End is one of the things that has driven me out onto the Road most of my adult life.

To regard the death of those you know and love as a natural thing, to turn the painful experience of their loss into something that enriches and strengthens your own life (because, face it, they ain't got one anymore) - that's the mostly truly reverant eulogy and memorial one can make. Which is trite, perhaps, but people seem to forget it, again and again.
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