There's all kinds of publications out there about aging. How to slow it down, stop it, deal with it, hide it and even undo it.
Shirtless John wrote a very funny blog about how men age. 
Then I recalled an email I received early last week from a high school classmate. It wasn't the usual "how's the family, whatcha been up to" email I get on occasion from former classmates. This one was to let me know that we had lost a member of our family. Our "Class of 1983" was minus one, again. She was 42. A wife and daughter. She succumbed to cancer. I hadn't even known she had been sick. I actually, had hardly known her at all. But I was deeply affected, all the same.
We go thru our day to day routines without giving our own death a millisecond of a thought.
We drink out caffeine-ladened Starbucks while speeding our Beemers down the freeway, on our way to our stress-filled jobs, in order to make more money so we can buy more things we can't afford and don't need. We eat our cholesterol burgers with trans-fat-filled cheese and drink our carbonated sugar colas.
We come home, sit on our butt-squashed couches eating greasy potato chips and drinking our 100 calorie beers.
We are slowly killing ourselves. One soda, one burger, one coffee, one fast-driven mile at a time.
What if your life ended tomorrow?
Who will bury you? Who will raise your children? Who will care for your parents until they die?
Do they know the financial details of your life together? Do they know who you pay your mortgage to? Your health and car insurance? Where do you bank? Who has access to that money if you're not around?
Do you pay all your bills online? Have you ever considered maybe making a list of all your usernames and passwords for your family members to help sort out your affairs ?
Do you have life insurance? Have you updated your beneficiaries? Do you have a will? A living will? Do you know what a living will is? Does your spouse know if you want the plug pulled, and when?
Did you know that if you set your kids up with trust funds the courts and attorneys can't touch the money you leave them?
What about power of attorney for your surviving spouse?
What happens to your house? If you are gone, will your spouse and children continue to have a place to sleep, food in their tummies and clothes on their back?
I'm 42. Even tho I'm making an attempt to turn the health side of my life around, there's no guarantee that some fast-driving, soda chugging, stressed-out maniac won't slam into me on the freeway while he's talking to his wife and texting his girlfriend. And take us both out.
One second in time. Forty-two years wiped out. My husband is left without a friend, partner and lover. My kids without a mommy for hugs, love, kisses, advice, encouragement, praise and support.
Take a step back. Look at yourself and those in your life. How important is it for them to have you in their life today, right this second?
What are you doing to give them what they need and love the most, for as long as possible?
If you can't do it for yourself…. Do it for them.
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