plastic

a few blocks up the road from my apartment, there is a sign a lot of signs. but there is one sign that i look at every. single. day. its the fire fatality ticker of the Memphis Fire Dept. It tracks how many days its been since there was a fatality from fire I moved to memphis the day after a fire fatality. my first day looking at this sign, it read "1" i found this very strange because 1) why would you NEED to track that? and 2) why would you WANT to track that? but at the same time i found it very intriguing.

66 days. the city went 66 days without a fire related death. as i said, i looked at this every day. the morning i left for work, it read 66. i came home, the sign read 0. i felt strangely disheartened by this. i felt like there was some magic number that needed to be hit, and 66 was not it.

but this sign reminded me of a bigger personal life view i haven't thought about in a while. death isn't worth fearing. it happens to everyone. it can happen at a moments notice. and when it does, people should celebrate your life, not mourn your death. yes i agree its never fun to lose someone. i don't know from personal experience, and i can't imagine the pain that accompanies it. but i feel this belief will allow me to cope very well when my loved ones pass on. there is something after each life. whether it is re-incarnation or heaven or nirvana, i do not know or care. but i know that the possibility of death at any moment drives me to make the most of each day. rarely do i waste a day without doing something productive, making the lives of the people i care about better. be it a text, a phone call, a favor, or a gift, i strive to please those i cherish most.

there was a time i did not live like this. a time where i was happy doing nothing, and happy being selfish and shallow. but those days are gone, and i will fight tooth and nail if they ever show their hideous face again.

to anyone who reads this, i love you. thank you for being who you are, and for being a part of my life