“Life is a highway. I wanna ride it all night long.”

Those are of course the lyrics to the song released in 1991 by Tom Cochrane.

It’s an uplifting song, brimming with hope and the feeling that anything is possible for as long as we want it to be.

Unfortunately, the cold, hard truth is that we all come with an expiration date.

Recently, I researched U.S. life expectancy and came across some interesting data.

According to macrotrends.net, the current life expectancy for the U.S. in 2022 is 79.05 years.

That is up ever so slightly (0.08%) from 2021, when the life expectancy in the U.S. was 78.99 years.

In 2020, the life expectancy for the US was 78.93 years (again, a 0.08% increase from the previous year).

However, it was noted on the website that all 2020 and later data are U.N. projections, and do not include any impacts of the COVID-19 virus.

Upon further research, I learned that human life expectancy is on the rise based on information I came across on futuresplatform.com.

It states on their website that the average person born in 1960 could expect to live to be 52.5 years old.

That’s in stark contrast to today, when a person born has an average life expectancy between 79-83 years of age.

I’ve often quipped that my goal is to live to be 100 years old.

Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.

Quite frankly, I don’t want to know when my time is up.

Instead, I’d rather live each day in my mind as if there are many more to come.

Sadly, just as life is given to us, it’s also a guarantee to be taken away at some point as well.

That still doesn’t make it any easier to come to grips with when our number is called, though.

Such was the case when I received the sad news that my mom’s husband’s mother passed away in the early hours of Monday morning.

A hardworking woman who raised six children, she enjoyed a life well-lived.

She was 94, and a tough cookie, to say the least.

And with that longevity, had countless stories to tell, I’m sure.

I fondly remember how happy she was at her surprise 90th birthday celebration at Knepper’s Inn in New Ringgold.

Today, her family and friends will be given one final chance to pay our final respects.

RIP, Pauline Coleman.

May your soul be at peace as you join your husband, William, in heaven.