I hadn’t talked to Brett in at least 10 years, but I used to know him pretty well. I can still hear his voice and see him laughing at the dinner table when we ate at his house. He was married to my sister until their divorce, so he was the father of my two nieces. I got along with him fine and he always treated me well.
I got a message from my sister Sunday to say that Brett had died unexpectedly of a heart attack about three weeks ago. It was a surprise because he was fairly young and had always been in great health, as far as I knew.
The news made me uncomfortable, simply because other people’s deaths remind me how fragile all life is — including my own.
I read a news article Saturday about new software that can analyze a person’s health and then use artificial intelligence to predict when he’s going to die. The software was said to predict a person’s death with “unsettling accuracy.”
That led me to wonder something. If some sort of software or divination could accurately predict the date and time of my death, how would it affect the way I live today?
We’re neither friends nor enemies, just strangers who share the past
‘This path leads to somewhere I think I can finally say, I’m home’
When love finally dies, it’s like a fever breaks and the pain is gone
Briefly: Death of Mad magazine is a blow to my memories of irreverent humor
Briefly: People remember how you treat them — and they can pay you back
Briefly: Article I wrote about missing someone still connects with tens of thousands
The more I see of death, the more determined I am to live life fully
Suicide ends pain of depression, but scars loved ones left behind
Life is too short to hide the love you would regret hiding at death