Death.

It comes and steals our loved ones from us.

Just heard from a dear friend and former editor who sent a quick email that his son had passed suddenly, without warning, in the night in his bed.

He was a grown man working for several years with lots of friends. Then, when he failed to show for an appointment, they checked his apartment and found him there.

The note from his father, my good friend of many years, was short and poignant. I can imagine him sitting there writing it.

My only response was that I had no words.

The ink on the email print-out is still wet as I ponder my own family and how I would suffer if Sally or any of our children or grandchildren passed on.

The pain would be incessant, as I know it has been for many of my colleagues at Farm Progress who have lost little ones as well as adults.

Here I sit with my parents and both brothers gone, and Sally's parents also have left us. I lost a niece at a young age years ago, and watched as some good friends slowly went into the beyond.

When I was in 6th grade, we lost a classmate to leukemia. Kathy was her name, and I will never forget watching that little white casket lowering into the ground  above a lake. She taught me how to spell "tomorrow" for a school test.

What keeps us going is counting our blessings. Mine number so many, and to grieve while they are here to enjoy life with me I cannot do for long.

But, still, my friend's son has gone without warning. Fathoming his pain is impossible.

He indeed loved his son and the two girls he raised, and that is perhaps the only solace.

The song reminds us to tell our loved ones how we feel, and that's advice that has guided me for decades. Least we do not have the chance some winter night, be sure their passing is with the memory of your feelings in their soul.

Life is hard when you think of the fact it has only so many chapters, and then the book closes. We share this, and, as the poet says: all that wealth, all that beauty ever gave, await alike the inevitable hour.

 The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

We all have thoughts of our mortality, thinking that becomes more common as you reach the elder years. Yet, I do not ponder my termination but rather enjoy the taste of being alive.

Giving love to my family is a joy, because the returns are so great. Remaining optimistic even when you hear of an untimely passings is not an easy process, but the alternative of perpetual sadness and selfish woe-is-me-ism is unacceptable to me.

Indeed, I know there are those in my life that if I lost I cannot imagine how I would go on. Yet, I know I will because others are waiting for me on this side of the shadow before I slip past the veil.