Yea, though I walk through the valley... (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Yea, though I walk through the valley...

10:02am Friday 14th September 2007

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"No matter how I struggle and strive/ I'll never get out of this world alive," sang Hank Williams, who died in the back of a limousine, New Year's Day, 1953.

Apart from a chauffeur in the front and a bottle of whiskey in the back, the country singer and songwriter was alone. He was 29.

Williams, physically unwell for most of his life, thought he was being pursued by the angel of death, a pale rider on a white horse.

Black blues guitar-player and singer Robert Johnson sang about a hound from hell on his trail. Johnson didn't live to see 30 either.

Intimations of mortality was once a common subject for prayers, poems, songs and meditations. These days death has replaced homosexuality as the phenomenon that dare not speak its name. It is the shadow behind the screen, the veiled face we dare not contemplate.

And so we endure the distant idea of our passing, shrugging our shoulders fatalistically. 'Oh well, what will be will be. Nothing I can do about it. Why worry?'

But we do worry, privately, in the dark hours; we lie awake in a cold sweat, imagining how it will be. You may never have been lucky on the horses or the lottery, but you can safely bet on your number coming up sooner or later. No one gets out of here alive.

Death being a fact of life, we should embrace the idea of it rather than push it away.

Drink, drug or rock yourself into oblivion as often as you like, but at the end of every binge that veiled face will be a little closer.

So accept it and remove the fear from your life. Be busy, make the most of what you have, and don't forget to say thank you every day lest it ends before night falls - as it did for Mr Johnson and Mr Williams.