Goucher fiction prof Kathy Flann reflects on the final “deadline” we all face, the fact of our society’s deep denial of it, and what we can do along the way to find more meaning and more meaningful fun.

This chunk of rock on which we live will die. Everyone we know will die. Most will go painfully. It is unlikely that many of us, at age ninety-five, will slip away while we sleep. The few that do win a lottery that spares discomfort and the burden of awareness. The fact that this is our best-case scenario seems impossible. As children, none of us says, “When I grow up, I want to be a policeman and I want to die in my sleep.”