Joe Michael Sasanuma Obituary

Author’s note: in case it wasn’t obvious, this is a self-written obituary in which Joe wanted to express how he wishes to be remembered.  He is not dead.

Joe Michael Sasanuma, who earlier today died at the eternal age of 18, never had a moment in which he didn’t enjoy life.

He lived by the words “What’s the point of living if you can’t feel alive?”, a line fittingly taken from the James Bond movie “The World is Not Enough”.  Of the many things Joe loved about life, watching and critiquing movies, with the James Bond series closest to his heart, was on his list of top ten.

Joe’s unique talent was having opinions and verbally expressing them, often with very little thought.  One-liner insults were his specialty.  Joe referred to actress Denise Richards, who co-starred in the aforementioned James Bond film, as “The bitch who ruined a perfectly fine Bond film.”  Of Picasso, he said “I know shit when I see one.”  But Joe always kept the best lines for liberals, about whom he memorably declared “Everyone has the right to be wrong.”

Joe was full of passions.  He was a proud graduate of Boston College and he liked to remind anyone he met that the school’s men’s hockey team was a five-time national champion.  He later graduated from Boston College Law School, where he spent most of his time writing the lengthy Japanese Wikipedia article on Boston College, finding it unacceptable that rival Boston University had a page but his alma mater didn’t.

Politics was Joe’s strongest passion, and it was at Boston College that he first encountered liberals, a fascinating species that often have brilliant minds that go dangerously astray.  As he progressed to law school then a career in law, he came to believe that Republicans were on the Endangered Species List, and, not interested in being silenced into extinction, he dedicated the rest of his life to the great cause of loudly mocking liberalism.

Even before movies or politics, Joe’s first love was money.  As a child, he would annoy his parents by pointing out the price fluctuations at every gas station they drove past.  On the day he turned 18, he opened his first stock brokerage account, dumped in all of his life savings, doubled it, and nearly lost it all in the matter of nine months. He also had great love for the casinos, whose connection to his interest in the stock market he vehemently rejected.

Joe’s many passions were rarely tied to talent.  His stock portfolio underperformed the general stock market every year since he started investing.  He loved sports, particularly football, but the best he could accomplish athletically was becoming the most important bench player on his high school tennis team. He counted Japanese chess as one of his favorite hobbies, yet his skill level advanced only once despite years of taking bi-weekly lessons. He wrote a blog for years, even though it averaged only one visitor every three days.

The one talent Joe did have was his appetite.  His ability to engulf an entire meal and a half, starting with an hors d’oeuvre, followed by an appetizer, salad, soup, main dish and dessert, over the course of three hours during which he would rant about anything that popped into his head, mesmerized anyone who had a meal with him.  Joe took great pride in the fact that his body weight hadn’t changed since the day he graduated from high school.

Of all the passions Joe had, the one he cared about the most was his family and friends.  He was convinced that they were the ones who made his life so much fun to live, and he found overcoming any loss in his inner circle, particularly due to death, his greatest challenge.

Because of this, Joe always looked for opportunities to grow his circle of friends. He loved meeting new people who were different from him in background, career and ways of thinking because he learned from them how much there is to life beyond his own.

Joe always intended to live forever, knowing that his passion for life and living will never cease.   In recent years, though, he had been engaged in a losing battle with his mortal enemy, time, and although he was confident that he would ultimately prevail, he also expressed his acceptance of whatever fate God had planned for him.

Surrounded by a large contingent of family, friends and colleagues in his final hours, Joe indicated that he hoped he will be remembered as someone who lived his life in a way that contributed to the betterment of the world, and his only wish was that those who survive him will do the same.

There will be a public celebration of his life in which everyone will be invited to attend but no one will be permitted to cry.

Unlimited amount of food and alcohol will be served throughout the seventy-two hour event.