One of my brothers, Gary is an attorney that has been working in Prague, Czech Republic for 2 decades. 

He's working in Chicago for the next several weeks and hooked up with an old friend and former colleague who he worked with in Chicago many years ago.  He sent the picture below that includes her. 

Sadly, she has late stage ovarian cancer and is facing an early end to her wonderful life. 

We take most of our blessings for granted but the link below is a reality check using  average life expectancy's  for the last 100 years. 

By today's(2019) standards, dying in your 50's is having your life cut short.

However, for the previous thousands of years, a person(especially black) that lived into their 50's cheated the early death which most Americans faced(compared to today).

A black women born in the year 1900 had a life expectancy of 34 years!!!!!

No antibiotics, no vaccines, no chemo, no advanced medicine. No luxuries. No technology. Not much............even though people back then didn't miss what they never had. 

Since she's an attorney, then she's highly intelligent and probably had a very comfortable, enjoyable/rewarding life............even if it's ending too soon. 

https://www.seniorliving.org/history/1900-2000-changes-life-expectancy-united-states/

Women and Life Expectancy White women born in 1900 were expected to live until age 49 and of those women born in that decade, 12 percent would live to be age 65 and 4 percent to age 85. For African American women born in 1900, life was short. Their life expectancy was only 34 years and only 11 of those women would make it to age 65 and five percent would turn 85.