the world's longest surviving heart transplant survivor died. he was fifty-two years old. he had lived with his new heart for thirty-one years. upon receiving his new heart, he gained a new appreciation for life and travelled more and was nicer to his friends ...as near death folks tend to do. what they don't mention in every article about this is that he died from cancer. and he also had diabetes. i think that sort of rules out any "god had a plan for him" talk. god wanted him to appreciate life, so he struck him with a heart attack in his early twenties. tony got the message and started being a better person. god still wasn't convinced, so he gave tony diabetes just so he wouldn't get too uppity. tony took to walking 4k's to raise money for heart disease, to which god responded by striking him dead with cancer. in 1945, a farmer in colorado went out to kill a chicken for dinner. he cut off the head, and the chicken ran around headless ...then continued running around with no head for almost two years. mike the chicken became a tourist attraction. "come see the zombie chicken!" so the farmer went from desperately wanting to kill mike for some food to desperately hoping he'd stay alive and make him more money. the sad thing was that mike couldn't appreciate how awesome his living was. no one could high five him, "you're really doing it, buddy!" and mike couldn't learn to appreciate life. "where's the chicken?" "oh, he's out gazing over the beauty of a mountain lake, reflecting on life." nope. just a headless chicken. if the powers that be make the odds and we're all chickens in someone's coop, just be thankful you don't have the same farmer as tony the heart transplant survivor.