Fear of death is something that we feel we don't have to deal with until we're older. But why not deal with death now and take away the fear when your time does come?
In medieval times when death was all around in the shape of plagues, famines and pestilence people learned how to die. They learned how to deal with not only their own death but also the deaths of those around them. By doing this they could get on with living their short(er) lives with less fear and doubt.
Books like the Ars Moriendi (meaning the Art of Dying in Latin) provided a means for people to come to terms with their mortality by removing fear of the after life. Today there is no such means of learning to deal with death and its effects on us and the social means of dealing with death (funeral rites, burial, prayers etc.) seem to be at odds with Ireland's move away from the Catholic church.
Given that it has such a huge impact on our lives why shouldn't there be some way of learning to deal with death in our live? Instead of being thrown in at the deep end why not forearm ourselves with knowledge. This is not to diminish the impact or gravity of our own or someone else's death but just giving people awareness and comfort in a terrible time.