And in a heartbeat, it’s all over. A life so rich, so varied; decorated by success, topped with happiness, with so much more to come and then, in a heartbeat, it’s all over.
No one saw the tragic death of Liverpool footballer Diogo Jota coming. 28, at the peak of his powers, newly married with three young children. Yesterday the world was at his feet. Today the light has gone out.
For Jota, insert every man and woman. For all of our lights will go out one day. We hope not as prematurely, in such cruel circumstances, but one day we will be no more, just a memory. Someone’s death always reminds me that I need to live here and now and today.
I can dream about what may come and plan things to do and places to go. But if I leave it a ‘one day’, ‘when I can fit the time in’, ‘can I afford to leave the rat race?’ and ‘when I have retired from work’, am I not tempting fate?
Not all those who die, prematurely, disappear in a heartbeat. Some suffer unexpected and terrible illness, which lingers on until death becomes a preferable option. What is certain is that at some time, one way or the other, death will happen to us, too. Even if we have religious comfort, believing we will survive our own deaths, surely it’s better to enjoy this one life we get on this Earth? Heaven can wait, right?
Poor Diogo Jota, poor everyone else who has died this year. It isn’t always true that the good die young and the bad live into old age, although it can feel like it sometimes. But there’s no plan, no grand design, either. In other words, everything doesn’t happen for a reason.
We are the lucky ones to have been born at all. The odds of being born at all are one in 400 trillion. We are here by the remarkable accident of our own birth. And we are only here to procreate, which is to say to produce more children. Take that early retirement, book that dream holiday, buy that bucket list item you have always wanted, do everything you want to do because there will come a time, hopefully not soon, when you won’t be able to.
2025 has been a terrible year, but for someone next year is a terrible year and the year after. The loss of family, friends and even heroes, like rock stars, comes at you like a train as the years go by. As you grow old, you become terribly aware that not everyone grows old with you or, worse for you, they grow old when you don’t.
If it feels good, and it doesn’t hurt anyone else, do it. Time is the key. And what we have today we may not have tomorrow. RIP Diogo Jota and love and peace to his family and friends. Another terrible reminder that someday never comes.
