Sam Smith - Having just lost a dear close friend, whose mutual history goes back to before either of us were teens, I find myself musing on how much time I have left on this earth. Up to now I have found comfort in the notion that being in one’s 80s is like being a teenager: you don’t know how to do it, nobody shows you how to do it and nobody likes how you do it.
But losing one of your oldest friends takes the joke out of the situation. One thing that has occurred to me is that death doesn’t really happen all at once. Numerous experiences that defined my life have joined forgotten history – matters that even I have a hard time recalling.
I don’t fear badly about dying as an event because it typically ends a sickness or replaces unconsciousness or sleep. With former, it ends pain and with the latter it turns the temporary into the permanent. Yes, I could be the victim of an explosion or a gunshot but the odds are that death will come more quietly.
Meanwhile, I’ll just continue to
enjoy one of the happy revelations of journalism, namely that real life begins
and ends today. What happened yesterday is no longer news and what happens
tomorrow is pure speculation. Our life is today. And I’m still living it.
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