Confront the tough truth that each of us will eventually die? In my years as an internist caring for young and old alike, some people understand this early and some people never get it. In denying death, we intensify our fear of it. Usually, however, it is sometime during their 50s that people first look into the eyes of death. Put it off as we may, the hard certainty is that we are all aging and one day an end will come. Shakespeare described advanced age in his play "As You Like It," Act II, Scene VII (All the world's a stage):

". . . Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful his...