NEWSFLASH: you are going to die

Rewind...

It all started with the trip to Miami for the Advanced Intensive (for yoga, of course) last year. On my way to Miami, I stopped in Toronto for a night to attend Uncle Bob's 80th birthday bash. Uncle Bob was Pinky Bombmaker's friend's uncle. He was a frail tiny man with a flaming attitude larger than life. He used to come to Calgary during Stampede and we would always go for brunch at the same restaurant. His health deteriorated in the last few years to a point that he was on oxygen full-time and could no longer fly on a plane. So we turned to technology and he would "join" us for brunch via Skype. We always made fun of his non-existent appetite. His typical breakfast included a glass of white wine and two bites of scrambled eggs. It was an ongoing joke with me asking if he ate his breakfast, and he would raise his wine glass and smirk. And at his birthday bash, we crowned him with a tiara that we brought from Calgary. Those were precious moments.

Uncle Bob passed away a few weeks after his birthday bash.

Fast forward a little...

Mom phoned, but not on a Wednesday. Our weekly phone call is always on Wednesday, so I knew something was up.

"Your uncle died."



That was around the same time Osama bin Laden bit the dust.

A few weeks later, I attended the funeral of my co-worker's father. He was killed in a car accident.

In the following months, more prominent figures kicked the bucket: Jack Layton, Steve Jobs, Amy Winehouse, Kim Jong-Il, Whitney Houston... and it just occurred to me that Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Russell both died in 2011.

My yoga friend Ray Ray's father passed away when the big bomb was dropped in the 3A Yoga kula. As of now, 3A Yoga Inc. is in deathbed.

My friend's childhood friend, my other friend's mother, both left the land of the living in the last little while.

Hmm...

Fast forward...

I must be getting old. Death seems to have become a recurring theme, though not getting hit directly, death just sort of makes its presence known and then drifts away. Gone are days which anyone over the age of 10 seems old. Birthday parties, weddings, baby showers and eventually retirement parties become more frequent. Before we know it, funeral arrangement is on our calendars.

In San Marcos, Manorama said "the only thing in life we know for sure is death, we are all going to die".

Grim but true, and not surprising.

What are you going to do about the only thing that you are certain of?