This is another essay about the meaning of life. I’m haunted by attempting to grasp the meaning of life. As I grow older, the question haunts me even more. What’s it all about?

Kamala Harris will be inaugurated on January 20, 2025, as our new president. I’ll celebrate her having saved the nation from the chaos of the virgin king. Additionally, I’ll celebrate reaching a milestone of 82 years on a long and winding road without a clear idea of where I’m going and what will happen.

I get the message about sharing. My mantra about life has a similar mindset. It is giving that we get. Nevertheless, this couplet from the lyrics haunts me.

Haunting is the word. I’m obsessed with the reality that after I journey down my yellow brick road, it stops. When Kamala becomes president, how many more inaugurations will I be around to witness? It is a limited number; it is finite. Trust me; it haunts me.

I’m also obsessed with giving...my time, gifts, caring, and assistance. I have written visiting Myanmar a decade ago. When I was touring the Inle Lake area, my tour guide was Moh Moh. She said she had to pick up my itinerary at her home after leaving Inle Lake. She added I could meet her daughter, Ti Ti, who was home on winter break from school.

We walked into their living room and were greeted by her nine-year-old daughter. “Hi, my name is Ti Ti. Do you want to play some games?” We played for forty-five minutes, talked about all sorts of things, and laughed as we played Scrabble. I left their home, realizing I had met my granddaughter. Ti Ti and her two younger siblings and parents were a part of my family.

Ko Ko, Ti Ti’s father, was my tour guide during the winter break of 2017-2918. During winter break in 2019-2020, my family and I toured many places Westerners had never visited or even knew existed. Such a place was Set Set Yo. I had no idea why we stopped there. We were there for a couple of hours. While Moh Moh and Ko Ko were doing something, I enjoyed the young kids. While I was flipping the children, Moh Moh and Ko Ko gave them notebooks and pencils to help them in school.

Aside from flipping a bunch of youngsters, I picked up a small child who wasn’t yet a year old. The two of us were processing our encounter.

It was the same sort of encounter that I had on my first trip with Ti Ti. The only difference was that this little one was my great-granddaughter. I’m helping to support A Ngal Lay because she is a part of my family.

That was four years ago. Today, I got an email from Moh Moh.

Than is an artist friend in Myanmar who has painted a handful of his paintings in my home. One of the paintings that I commissioned him to paint isn’t in my home. It is in A Ngal Lay’s home.

Over the past few years, I have gotten pictures and videos from A Ngal Lay. This is one of her standing next to her painting.

Moh Moh attached these three photos of A Ngal Lay.

Hi!

You make me laugh.

When can I see you again?

What haunts me is the couplet.

This is the central dilemma that I am facing. It starts with my finiteness. What are the chances that I’ll see A Ngal Lay again? What about my family in Myanmar and Ti Ti, who fled to Bangkok? The most important part of my life is far away on the other side of the world. They are my isolated family. That haunting hurts.

Nearly half of my income is wire-transferred to Myanmar and Thailand annually. Much of the funds for the wire-transfers are derived from my home equity loan. I drive a 2009 WV Jetta with over a quarter million miles.

Social Security and I know that my clock is ticking. They offer their prediction of what my life expectancy is. Just click on this site. Then pick your sex, date of birth, and then click on submit. When I did it for this essay, a male born on January 20, 1943, will live on average until he is 89.7. That is merely an average. Some others will die tomorrow, and others will live into their 90s.

I am driven to help my family on their journey down the yellow brick roads of life, come hell or high water. That isn’t a debatable issue. My drive is based upon my mantra: It is in giving that we get. Who benefits from helping my family? Sure, they do. However, I benefit as much as they do.

Caution. If that doesn’t make sense to you, you are not following my mantra. Start giving money, time, encouragement, whatever. From my vantage point, I am one of the wealthiest people in the world, and Trump is pathetically the poorest.

However, one thing that emerges from my situation is how finite what I am doing with my family is. If you follow my manta and give something to another person, that too is finite. If I help six family members in Asia, their clocks are also ticking. A Ngal Lay hopefully lives a long life, but her clock is ticking. She will remember her family telling her about some old American with whom she connected. If she has children, they will acquire the painting and the story. But they, too, will grow old.

So, our giving has a short shelf-life...one or two generations. Okay, maybe three generations. So, we face a problematic duality. I must continue, but what I am doing will fade along with those I have helped and who have helped me. That is the ultimate haunting.

Now, I can sit and ponder the brevity of my being and the unimportance of my efforts in the grand scheme of things in life. Or I can shout as loud as possible, “Ko Ko, Moh Moh, Ti Ti, Fatty, Snow, and A Ngal Lay, you are important. I love you. I’m happy we met; you added so much to my Weltanschauung. Remember, you are worth it. And don’t forget, it is in giving that we get.”

“You are worth it.”