No, not me, not yet, at least, not acutely...
I guess, from one perspective, we are all dying, at least those of us who are beyond our teens or early twenties. Up until then, our bodies are creating more cells than are being lost to normal cell attrition. Maybe it's even later than teens or early twenties; I guess there is some period during which the rate of cell creation and loss are balanced. But at some point, we start losing more than we create. From my perspective, at that point, whenever it is, we truly start dying. But, that's not really the point of this particular entry.
The point of this entry is to recognize that today, at 11:00 AM Eastern time, a memorial service will be held for Kevin Hoffman, a former coworker and peer. Kevin is the first person I can think of who was basically the same age as me with whom I had a personal relationship that has passed away due to natural causes. To be fair, Kevin lived a hard life, and from what I understand, the last few years were especially hard lived. This no doubt hastened his passing, but, are not many of us helping to crack open the door a bit for the grim reaper - either by smoking or being overweight, or whatever?
Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend the service, as it is being held in the Duke Chapel - a fitting location, as Kevin was a Duke graduate and dedicated Duke fan. There will be a reception following the service, and I imagine it will have a "Big Chill" feel to it. Kevin was part of DataFlow at the height of the "As The Disk Spins" period - that part of the company's history that saw a group of intelligent, motivated mostly twenty-somethings working hard, playing hard, and loving hard. An environment that had as much drama as any soap opera.
Hopefully, this will be an isolated instance, and it will be many years before the passing of well known peers becomes a regular occurrence. But, I do believe today marks a milestone in my life.
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Posted by David at May 20, 2009 06:13 AM | Categorized under: A day in the life