Death is real.
It occurs all around us and sometimes hits very close to home. And when it does, death finds most of us totally unprepared to deal with it. We tend to exalt youth, life and energy, and almost deny the existence of old age and death. It's as if we're all pretending to be immortal, and we live as if not thinking about old age will make sorrow and death go away. There's often anger accompanying the grief of the loss of life.