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Your Real Biological Clock Is You’re Going to Die – Hmm Daily

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In April, in a small town on a small island in a small string of islands trailing down from the main part of Japan, the world’s then-oldest person died. Nabi Tajima was 117 years old—the last surviving human being born in the 19th century. Maybe the year 1900 sounds far away, to you. It comes closer. My father was born in 1940. Right now, I am 47 years old. Everyone who was 47 years old when my father was born is now dead. All of them. That entire group of middle-aged people, who made up the adult world when my father was a child, is gone. My father is dead, now, too. He smoked, and it shortened his life. But I lived with him, grew up with him. I was an adult with him. We drank coffee at the dining room table together, read the newspaper, talked on the phone. He sat and talked with my firstborn son when he was little. He held my second-born, as a baby, while he could. The older boy remembers him. The younger boy is seven now. When my father was a boy of seven, Nabi Tajima was 47. I kee

Your Real Biological Clock Is You’re Going to Die – Hmm Daily Skip to content Photo illustration, tombstone header photo dee E. Warenycia, Roseville, CA, baby carriage CTK via AP Images Tom Scocca is the editor of Hmm Daily See more Share this: Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) In April, in a small town on a small island in a small string of islands trailing down from the main part of Japan, the world’s then-oldest person died. Nabi Tajima was 117 years old—the

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