Did you know Vincent van Gogh died when he was 37?
was the first message the 37 year old Vincent read on his phone in the morning, minutes after waking up. It had been sent the night before, by his twin sister, who obviously was 37 too.
He knew and replied to her that he did.
He didn't tell his sister that he had found this out, about half a year ago. Back then, he had researched the life of Vincent van Gogh, for a blog post on Steemit. He also discovered that van Gogh's younger brother, Theo, who supported Vincent financially ( and probably mentally too ) in most of his years as a painter, had died even younger. Theo passed away, 6 months after Vincent's death, at the age of 33.
Vincent decided to look for the exact age van Gogh had when he died and found out it was 37 and 4 months ( minus one day ). He calculated his own ( and his sister's age ) and discovered they were exactly 37, 3 months and 5 days young. In 26 days, they would have surpassed the age that Vincent van Gogh had when he died.
Later that evening
Vincent played a record on his father's old record player.
Only yesterday, his twin sister had installed this machine in his house in Portugal, while Vincent was doing the dishes and baking pancakes. They had been wanting to play some music but his old record player had suddenly stopped working. He was reminded of the fact that his father's record player had to be in one of the boxes that had arrived to his house earlier that day. It had come with two big boxes containing his father's records.
Just now, he had picked one by the Australian group Midnight Oil. He had always liked the raw 80s sound of this group and especially the songs Beds are Burning - Official Video and Put Down that Weapon.
He checked the backside of the record for the year it had been released and found out it was from 1987. He realized that his father ( who was born in 1950 ) was 37 when this record came on the market. In fact, he might have been 37 when he bought it. Now, 32 years later, Vincent - as a 37 year old - was playing that exact same record. That thought made him think of Vincent van Gogh again.
Later that night
just before falling asleep, he stared one more time at the replica of van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles ( as depicted above this post ). Just to make sure, he had looked up how and where van Gogh had died. Much to his relieve, the guy didn't die in that bedroom but had died in an inn in a small town close to Paris, 30 hours after having shot himself in the chest.
Vincent wasn't planning on doing something like that. He liked life way too much and it had only just began.
Possible Further Reading: Theo and Vincent - My Parallels With Van Gogh