For cradle Catholics like me, death is forever a part of how you see the world: how you pray, how you celebrate, how you tell stories and create art. But that doesn’t make your awareness of your inevitable death any easier. The thought of not being with my wife and my daughters, of never seeing my family again—these thoughts overtake me with an ambiguous frisson, something like the rush of ecstatic exhaustion I feel somewhere near the top of the hill.

I won’t run forever. But running feels like a practice inherited from some ancient tradition, something primal and odd. I run in the heat to run into the summer, to keep the heat going as the evening light begins to dim.

Ugh, I really need to stop reading powerful essays about running.

Eventually, one of them will make me pick up a new pair of shoes and get in a couple laps around the block.

It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently.

Such a striking article, especially considering one of my close friends came very close to death not too long ago. If it came down to it, I'd rather be in a hospice situation than be stuck in an ICU until and die a long, painful, costly death (or live a long, painful, costly life).