I meant to do a review of Sakura: Intellectual Property today, and that will be coming up in the next couple of days, but a couple of disparate threads came together for a totally different post. (But seriously, go read Sakura. It’s really good!)
You see, one of the things that makes the above mentioned book special is that it’s the last book that Zach Hill wrote. He was probably best known as the mind behind the brilliant Minimum Wage Historian blog, and had a reputation of being a great guy by all who knew him. He also passed away unexpectedly and far too soon at 29, leaving behind a young wife and the rough draft of the novel that would become Sakura.
I went to a funeral yesterday. That’s a hell of a thing to do on one’s birthday, but Terry was a friend, a brother biker, and an all around good guy. I wasn’t as close to him as a lot of other folks were, but he led me on one really big adventure. We sent him off with the roar of thirty Harley-Davidsons shattering the calm of a sunny, crisp April afternoon. Another friend gone. At 49, far too soon and totally unexpectedly.
I suppose that I’m fortunate to still be able to count all the friends that have passed on with the fingers of one hand. I know that won’t always be the case. First was Dan, a college friend and classmate who left behind a wife and a bunch of kids when God called him home unexpectedly. Then there was Kris, another classmate, college roommate for a year, gaming buddy, and all around nice guy whose passing I only learned about months after the fact from his widow.
The challenge I draw from them, from Kris, Dan, Terry, and even Zach though I never met him in person, is to try to live each day intentionally. That doesn’t mean life every day like it was your last, but it does mean knowing where your time goes. It’s so easy for me to fall into the endlessly scrolling trap of Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, watching other peoples’ stories, feeding off other peoples’ offenses, and letting an irreplaceable hour pass by without doing anything.
I’ve got time, after all. I’m only thirty-nine. Odds are I’ve got at least 50% of my life to go, maybe more if my family genetics hold up. But what if I don’t? That’s really the crux of the challenge, isn’t it? To live and plan as though there’s plenty of time still to come, and that I’d like to be healthy and financially secure to enjoy it, but to live as intentionally as I can, so that if today is actually my checkout time, that I can pass into eternity without too many regrets of time wasted.
It’s a challenge that I’ll probably never be able to measure up to. But it’s worth the effort. For Kris, for Dan, for Terry, and for everyone else who didn’t get a tomorrow, that I should keep their examples in mind.