As I get older, it would seem I am confronted more and more by the fact that life is short and fragile. It's interesting how you can be cruising along with life just fine and then something or somethings pop up and shake the foundation of life as you know it.
Okay, maybe not quite that dramatic. That sort of makes it sound like aliens made contact and everything we thought or believed was turned on end. Maybe a better way to describe it is one of those little blips in time where you accidentally trip over your own feet and almost fall.
You don't fall, but you almost do.
That's kind of what I have been dealing with lately.
You might (or probably not) remember a few weeks ago I mentioned in a post that a high school friend of mine had passed away. She was quite dear to me at one point in my life and although she had been struggling with leukemia and the complications it brings for a while, it was still a shock when she passed.
I've had grandparents pass away and older people I have known, but this was the first time I have ever had someone this close in age to me pass. As I said, I hadn't actually talked to her in a while, but it was still a big enough crack and a big enough stumble to put me a bit off balance for a few days.
Fast forward a few weeks... 
Apparently they were playing cards and her mom passed out at the table. They took her to the hospital and it started a week long series of events that ultimately ended up with my mother in law getting a pacemaker and defibrillator "installed". I'm fully aware of how lucky
To say neither of our minds have been focused this past week would be an understatement. I think if she had been closer it might not have been so bad, but the fact that she was 1300 miles away made it almost unbearable.
I've already mentioned ad nauseum the fact that our dog Jovi is struggling. We know it's just borrowed time at this point, and dogs time with us is limited to begin with, but it's just another reminder of how quickly time passes.
I was watching some TV last night and for some reason my mind drifted back to a friend that I haven't talked to in quite some time. It was a guy I used to work with and although he was a couple months younger than me, I always felt he was miles ahead of me in terms of maturity, knowledge, and basically just having his life in order.
I remembered I was friend with him on Facebook, but I hadn't seen him post anything in a while, so I went to his profile only to find a bunch of posts from a relative to his page.
It turns out he had passed away almost a year ago and his aunt was still posting memories to his page.
Big crack in the sidewalk, big stumble for me!
I literally had trouble getting to sleep last night. I went to read his obituary and it simply said that he passed unexpectedly at home. I found myself getting angry that there wasn't more information. This guy was younger than me, ran those military challenge races, had lost a healthy amount of weight since I knew him, but this still happened!
I better start getting my affairs together right now...
Finally, I have another friend who had a heart attack when he was 47. It was serious, but didn't take him from us. It was a catalyst for me, and that along with my own fight against cancer prompted me to start being more diligent about working out.
Lately, that same friend has been dealing with some other issues which originally stemmed from diabetes. It's gotten bad. I mean so bad that he actually has been starting to think about his final affairs.
I sincerely hope he is being a bit premature with all of that, but then again, with this crazy world, you never know. As much as you might want to deny it to yourself, our time here is finite. All the crypto in the world won't buy you more and we never know when our time will be up.
Sorry for the downer of a post today, but stuff like this really gets you thinking and sometimes you just need to get some of those thoughts out.
Maybe I just need to take some advice from the great Bon Jovi:
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