Some people say that death comes in threes. I don’t know about that. But it does seem like death has been more visible of late. That includes real life people in my home town, famous people, and friends of friends on the Facebook and stuff. A couple of them even rocked my world to the point where I looked up and shouted, “Well played, Universe! Those were some damn good people. Now they are gone and I’m still here? Well played!” My dad taught me that life isn’t always fair. He was right.

Yeah, I’m not a big fan of the Universe. In my religion (the one that I started) the Universe is an infidel and I have declared a vendetta. It’s a winner-take-all battle to determine The Last Thing Standing. I’ll be sure to let you know how that turns out. Tickets will be sold on PPV.

I was thinking a bit about all of the people who have died recently and had an “aha” moment. I realized that there are five kinds of people.

1. Born Before/Died Before – This group is comprised of people who were born before me and who also died before I was born. This group contains a lot of people including Caesar, Plato, Socrates, King Henry VIII, my distant ancestor Zeblin, and even John F. Kennedy.
2. Born Before/Died After – George Burns, Chuck Yeager, Johnny Cash, and my dad.
3. Born Before/Alive – This group includes people born before me who are still alive. Fun factoid: All of these people are older than me. William Shatner and my mom are currently members of this group.
4. Born After/Alive – The group is people born after me who are still alive. Fun factoid: All of these people are younger than me. This group includes Justin Timberlake, NFL quarterback Tom Brady, Andy Samberg, and my wife.
5. Born After/Dead – This is where it gets a bit painful. These are people that, no matter what else, I have outlived. This includes people like Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain and Heath Ledger.

I don’t know what purpose there is to coming up with groups like this. I can’t help it. This is the kind of weird stuff I think about.

There is one other notable group, though. It’s the group that really makes me stop and think. Specifically, it is people who died at a younger age than I am now. There are people I’ve “outlived” in terms of time spent on the planet. This group includes Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, John Lennon, John Candy, John F. Kennedy, Princess Diana, Freddie Mercury, and Judy Garland.

I guess the longer you live the more that category grows. I’m one who starts every day by waking up and saying to myself, “What the hell? You’re alive!” So I’ll continue to monitor my ongoing progress.