You only live once

My grandfather passed away a few days ago. It was unexpected, but not entirely surprising. He was being good about taking all his medicine, and there were no recent serious health issues, so there were no short-term indicators, but he had coronary surgery a few years ago and wasn't in perfect health, so it isn't entirely surprising. It still sucks; he was a good person to have as family. None of my friends ever met him, but I doubt I will do him justice or keep your interest if I attempt to describe his life, in addition to the fact that I don't know it all that well. So instead I will try to depress you and talk about death, because it is each one of our fates, and the fate of everybody we will ever know (baring advances in medicine that could make immortality possible, because I believe those advances won't come in our lives if ever.) Unfortunately, death is simply something we are forced to accept and deal with. Being depressed over the loss somebody is natural, but that does not mean we should not try to grow from the experience. I think I take death well, and not because I am uncaring or insensitive; I cared a lot for my grandfather. I deal with death well because I understand its importance. Without living beings dying we wouldn't be capable of making room for the next generation. After a few generations without death there wouldn't be enough resources to keep everybody alive. Also, it allows the species to make progress genetically, albeit over much longer spans of time. In a perfect world nobody would die who didn't choose to do so, and there would be enough resources for everybody. We live in a much more constrained world. Our bodies fail us, our resources fail us, we were not built to last forever and neither was the world we were born into. But dying does not erase one from the universe. The fact that one existed still holds and will hold forever. All of ones actions are permanent in this nature. Dying prevents you from creating new actions, so it is important to perform all the actions you wish to perform while you are still capable. Once you have lived, forever you will have had lived. In that sense, you never die. But you still do, in the classical sense, so you better do your stuff now.