The Choir Invisible

There's a lot of mortality going around these days. People shooting other people over grades. People shooting other people because someone else shot their daddy. People shooting other people because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. These are in addition to the daily flurry of death that doesn't require ammunition: cancer, natural disasters, car crashes, mine collapses. And no Mike Wallace to report on it.
It gets me to thinking, as I have for most of my life, about what it might be like when I shuffle off this mortal coil myself. I have always maintained a solid fear of death which, as I grow older, seems less and less appropriate. Every day that I make it through is a gift and I know it. Not that I live any sort of risky lifestyle, outside of my predilection for cheeseburgers. I am pretty cautious and the older I get the more I find myself slowing down as I approach that yellow light. I just don't want death sneaking up on me.
I have therefore decided to accept the following scenario: At some point in the future, hopefully a good while from now, I will be out in the yard, mowing the grass when I will be felled by a massive stroke. This suggests that I won't have to wither away in a bed someplace, and I will be useful right up until the moment that I am not. It also means that each and every time that I am able to complete both front and back lawns without dropping death, I am cheating death. It might not sound glorious, but it beats the heck out of "innocent bystander."