I went to Yahoo and looked at the top headlines:

Daniel Day Lewis Quits Acting – Who cares?
Johnny Depp is Now Johnny Debt (How Didn’t They Use This Title) – Boo Hoo.
Colin Kapernick Still a Kaperdick – Get a new schtick

Then I saw this one

Prodigy dies at age 42 

My first instinct was the guys who sang Breathe and Firestarter died. I thought they were a group (actually The Prodigy) so I read on to make sure I got my facts straight. Turns out it’s Prodigy of Mobb Deep who died from sickle cell anemia at the age of 42. I’m not that familiar with Prodigy and his impact made no difference in my life, but for some reason or another I needed to know how he died at the age of 42. This was not normal.

I asked myself, why did I care how he died? In the mortal sense, I’m always concerned for my own well being that it’s important to be cognizant of how people around you are dying. When you read about terrorist attacks or people being burned alive in buildings, you chalk these up to freak occurrences and “wrong place, wrong time” type deals. Nothing to worry about. Then you’ll read about the other breed of people who are too rich and get into drugs or too poor and get themselves shot over drugs. Drugs are bad, mmmkay. These don’t apply either. So when you see someone dead at 42 due to neither of these instances, it’s important to know why.

Sickle Cell Anemia is inherent at birth so I let out a sigh of relief. The #1 instinct of a human is survival. Some people disregard this natural born instinct but it’s very much in my mind. I’m pretty sure you only get one crack at life before you get reincarnated as a leaf or kite. Who knows. But dying at 42 is too young. Go see your doctor.