Is it possible to make a practice of death? We experience it in small ways across our lives. Nothing feels more like death than the end of a love affair. The fleeting joys and comfort remind us that all will wither with time, even those things we label with death until parting.
Children feel this lost love first, very often, with the loss of a family pet. Nothing can replace the love an animal can bring and to a boy or girl unaware of the pain, it can feel like a part of them is gone.
Feeling death once and again reminds us of mourning and loss, but does it really prepare us for our own end? Even the longest, fullest life moves more rapidly than we can understand. The days that seemed eternal as a toddler barely arrive for the elderly.
Our values and philosophies can help us understand those days better and perhaps also fill them with memories we will take with us to the end. But they do not prepare us for death. At best, they prepare us for a life worth lamenting when gone.