Today I had to register a phone app I wanted to try out.
So I began the complicated task of answering all their questions in the format they require.
It’s not too complicated but I’m grumpy and its time consuming.
Finally it came to my birthday.
And it wouldn’t let me simply enter the digits of my birthday.
No, instead, I had to scroll back, month by month to May of 1963.
I had to hit the back arrow 12 times for every year for 57 years.
I’m no mathematician but that is about 684 back clicks by my count.
At some point I realized I was back clicking slower as I recalled where I was and what I was doing that month.
Then I realized this journey was a snapshot of my life.
And to make it worse, I began wondering how many forward clicks I had left of this planet.
Followed by the question of what am I going to do with each of those clicks I have left.
I am not longer grumpy, that is the wrong adjective, perhaps “reflective” would be a more accurate description.
This experience left me wanting to write a book of my travels and experiences, lest they be forgotten.
Then my phone rang.
And it was the wife of a dear friend that had moved out of the area a couple years ago.
Calling to advise me that her husband, my friend, had passed away at 11:30 this morning.
This spurred me to quietly sit and recount the wonderful stories he regaled me with the last few times we visited.
The call ended with her asking me to spread the word to their friends of her husbands passing.
I immediately typed up an email and addressed it to those I knew were their friends.
Time is a funny thing.
There was a day when my late friend was a busy hardworking family man, whose day was packed with obligations and responsibilities.
When I sat and listened to his memories, his mind drifted back to those stressful difficult times that required so much of him.
And he always completed his stroll down memory lane with the observation that he had no regrets.
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