Scattered about our house are the many family
photographs capturing fleeting moments in the lives of parents, grandparents,
great grandparents, grandchildren, dear friends etc. These moments are mostly around happy and
sometimes joyous occasions but also reflect times of sadness and deep distress
– the aspects and nuances that life is ordinarily made up of.
In my mind, they represent the comings and
goings of the generations within this fleeting apparition called life. Most of us walk around secretly – and sometimes
not so secretly – terrified of the ineluctable fact that in some future time,
one of our loved one will be gazing upon our image in some dusty photo album or
embedded in the memory of a smartphone or if we are truly blessed hanging on a
wall and nurturing some short-lived thought about who we were when we were
alive. Hopefully they will be mostly pleasant
memories.
Yes, one day I will cease to exist – the journey
officially and precisely complete. That
is the way of it – what we were born to accomplish. One may take solace in the absurd idea that
after death, though our body begins the transient process of its disintegration,
we somehow magically go on for eternity no less. One may choose to blunt reality in any number
of ways. But, no matter, these kind of
choices change nothing. These are not benign
conclusions, for they blunt the believer’s capacity to live and to appreciate
the ephemeral beauty that is afforded to us as sentient beings.
We could live in a much saner, much happier
world if we would only evolve past these childish notions, live our lives fully
and encompass and cherish everyone, everything and embrace all of it while we
still breath.
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