Run fast, run hard but you cannot hide from death.  It will appear either  as a soft wind or a violent storm.  It will find you and take its place where you are.  All the exercise and good eating will not turn it away for when its time, it is time.  As an ex hospice nurse I have been blessed to have sat with many as they made their final transition.  I have heard death bed confessions and witnessed pleadings with the heavens for another day.  I have seen families fighting their own battles as they were coming to terms with the impending loss of a loved one.  Death is the great equilizer and changes all.  Yet, we like to pretend it does not exist.  We speak of it in hushed tones hoping it will not hear us.  Death does not want to be ignored.  It wants to be invited in for tea, to have a plate set at the table.  It wants to be with us side by side with life.   Being a friend to death  can teach us how to live.  If we are brave we will live a life with passion and gusto understanding that death is a part of our journey. We will learn that death is nothing to be feared.  I cried when I read the book “The Fall of Freddie the Leaf.” As the last little leaf let go after clinging on for so long  a deep well of grief and sadness rose to remind me to surrender to what  is and what will be. However we see death friend or foe, it is and will always be.