Too many funerals recently — more than a dozen in recent weeks.

Every single one of them for a younger friend.  It’s a jolt to your sense of mortality when you keep burying those who died at a younger age.

Some died from injuries from accidents in cars, on motorcycles or other mishaps but most simple succumbed to the diseases or problems with age.  When those who died leave the world at a younger age, you start wonder just how much time you have left on this planet.

I’ve always thought of my various aches, pains and infirmities as the cost of living, not as a prelude to death but when I head to Buchanan on Tuesday to bury yet another younger friend, doubts about remaining time form in the back of one’s brain.

Few us know when the expiration date of our lives.  Some, facing the finality of terminal illness, have some idea but the end can come without warning for some or as an inevitability for others.

I’ve dealt with death most of my life, losing friends in war and at home, and I’ve faced it few times.  Each encounter with the grim reaper has left me with more appreciation of life along with a desire to make the most of each remaining breath of life.

Still, are any of us prepared for that final day, that last breath, that moment of passage?

Have we told our spouses, our children or or parents that we love them?  Have we done enough to assure that those we leave behind are provided for? Have we made peace with God or whatever deity — if we have one — that we pray to?

Are we ready to die or, for that matter, have we ever been ready to live?