My father always told me it was a good day if he got up, read the paper, and didn’t see his name in the obituary column!
I’m getting on in years, and on a pretty frequent basis, I recognize a friend or family member in the obits column. As of late so many of my colleagues are dropping like flies. This makes me question my own mortality which reminds me life is short and we never know when we will kick the bucket and take our final breath.
I’ve reached the ‘two-minute warning’ of my life as a friend says, my senior years, also known as the Winter of our lives. Spring is our youth, Summer is our young adulthood, Fall is middle-aged, and Winter is the final chapter however, being an avid football fan I prefer to call it, ‘life’s two-minute warning.’
I have found myself scrolling Facebook and Google and using their internal search engines trying to think of names from my past to see what elementary, junior high, high school and college acquaintances may look like and what they’ve done with their lives. I have found many have already croaked, while others have had quite lucrative lives.
I do this with bygone neighbors, past roommates, ex-girlfriends, old bosses, former clients from my self-employed years, and even long-ago teachers. I’ve even done it with those of you reading this, that’s how I’ve reconnected with many people from my past. The only dilemma is recollecting the names to plug into the search engines.
The problem with being a kupuna/senior and living your two-minute warning of life is remembering what the heck you did with your life?
I think I had a good life? I think I starred in a few Hollywood movies and donated millions of dollars to multiple charities… I was also a Super Bowl-winning Quarterback…I also had three beautiful and caring wives, 18 children, and 36 grandchildren…
The beauty of it all, I can’t remember… All I can remember now is starting Facebook with my partner Zuck… Nothing wrong with dreaming!
Did I say I was in ‘The Winter of the two-minute warning of my life?’ It’s more like I’m in the red zone, better than being in the Twilight zone, on the opponent’s 5-yard line with only 13 seconds left in the game hoping to score that game-winning Super Bowl touchdown!
The moral of the story is, “if you live each day as if it’s your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” — Steve Jobs
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James “Kimo” Rosen is a humorist and photographer who lives in Kapa‘a with his dog.
