Life is Finite

Saw a news headline yesterday that stated that more Americans died in 2021 than any other year in history.

It was noted that Covid was the 3rd leading cause of death.

I’ve lost a number of acquaintances in the past six months and many were way below the life expectancy.

Makes me feel weird when I see obits of people my age and younger.

I bring this all up because I stopped and had lunch with a buddy who suffered a heart attack and a number of other health challenges.

He got lucky, and a bunch of us who know him professionally were quite concerned.

I wasn’t quite ready for the first look at my recovering pal.

He’d lost a lot of weight. His hair was grey and his color was off. He’d also lost some of the timber in his voice and I said the first thing that came to mind:

“You look good,” and I meant it.

I was happy to see him.

Lunch was easy conversation, a few old stories and a number of laughs, and in the hour or so we drifted back the 25 years that we’d all known one another.

As I drove away though I thought about the fact that we met when we were in our early 30’s.

Our kids were young.

We had a lot of dreams about what our future would bring both personally and professionally.

I have no idea how many days any of us have left, and we ate way less at that lunch than we ever did at one sitting…

…but we had another day…

…and that’s a good thing.

I texted:

“Good seeing you.”

“Let’s do it again soon,” he answered.

We will.

God willing.