William Shakespeare got it exactly right four centuries ago when he had newly widowed Gertrude speak these words to her son, the grieving prince of Denmark in “Hamlet”: “Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity.” Act I, scene 2, line 72. These are words of wisdom, but not necessarily consolation, in an era when the deaths of people most of us have never met take on disproportionate meaning.