YOLO you only live once

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May 10, 2017 (Note: this post inspired by one by @nanette64) I thought about old age a lot when I was young. I was looking forward to it! I wanted to be just like my grandmother. I could hardly wait to be done with going to school, growing up, working, having kids, etc. I just wish I'd been smart enough to squirrel away enough funds to do more when I reached my goal of gray hair. It seemed, at least for awhile, that death was all around me. There was a sluagh of classmates who died, there were deaths in my family, there were deaths of co-workers. With each death I felt my mortality more and more. The one death that really brought it home was in 1983, when my mother died. She was the last of the preceding generation of my immediate family to die. The sense that I was next was nearly overwhelming. I still feel it keenly. And ever since then I've been working toward getting (and keeping) my affairs in order to smooth the way for those who come after my death to sort through the detritus of my life. I'm not convinced that we live only once, though. I'm hoping the Buddhists are right, for I'm pretty sure I'd like to have a do-over or two. Here's a link to religions that believe in reincarnation: