I was pruning the ornamental dogwood and doing a few others bits of yard work while the snow holds off when my neighbor came over and explained why the ambulance and emergency vehicles had been outside his house after dark. His grandson had been found dead in bed of a massive heart attack. He was twenty.

Is there anything more horrifying than a person dying before having a chance to live?

I went ahead and finished my jobs which finished my pre-winter chores. The roof had been patched, we were well stocked with groceries and household necessities in case we get snowed in. We are always preparing for a future that finally, inevitably, will fail to arrive.

Most of us have some idea about when we will die -- which is never right now. A twenty-year old could reasonably expect to go to sleep and wake up. There's no way to be sure.

The owner of the house opposite the neighbor's, who spent part of his time there, had died of a heart attack earlier in the year. He was forty-seven.

As I approach my fifty-seventh birthday I am sometimes aware that I likely have no more than a couple decades left, if that. As long as it took me to grow to adulthood, or get through all my schooling. Not much longer than my first marriage.

Realistically, life's possibilities narrow as time dwindles. It's hard to think of time as a limiting factor. I can remember when summer lasted forever.

I guess writing yet another blog is as good a way as any to rage against the dying of the light.