death's sting...

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
- Isaac Asimov

there has been much talk of death these days... actually, death is all over the media... it's in fiction and in fantasy... it's in dreams and in realities... when life is lived well, death is but the next phase... O dear life, will i die well?

To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late,
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods?
- Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome--Horatius (XXVII)