Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. The first six years of my life I had the privilege and honor of celebrating my birthday with my great grandfather. And though we celebrated the same birthday, we are obviously very different in our ages and so when he died when I was six I

missed him but I didn't quite understand what it meant plus he was a lot

older than me so it made sense a little bit that older people die, that's what they do.

And from my very young perspective, as I went through life, I felt like I would live forever.

I think a lot of people feel that way when they're

younger. But then high school came and my sister was in a grade ahead of me so I

knew a lot of her friends. Well one of her friends who I knew when he'd been to my house had one

evening broken up with his girlfriend and he was very upset and when he drove

home he ended up wrapping his car around a tree. I'm not sure how it happened but I

ended up driving by right after it happened the police cars were still

there at the ambulance and I didn't know who it was at the time. I didn't find out that the next day that he had died.

It was very shocking for many of us in high school, including me, because what I realized at some point was that I too could die and because my

sister's friend was only one year older than me I realized that at any age I could die not just when I was old like my grandfather.

I mean I know we all know that we can die but I think when we actually see someone who's dying that's our age, it's a wake-up call.

Now since that time, of course, I've seen lots of death.

But at that time, I remember talking to my friends, having very deep conversations about life and death because all of us realize that at any point even though we felt young and invincible, we could die too.

And throughout the years, there's a very important phrase that I've learned about and I keep

close to my heart.

You may have heard of it too. It's called Momento Mori. And it's from the

Latin and it means remember that you must die. Because I actually believe that even though we do face death in our lives

and we see people that we love that are gone, pets that we adored that aren't with us anymore, family members that

were so close to us that we spoke to every day that aren't there anymore.

...