“After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked — as I am surprisingly often — why I bother to get up in the mornings.”
- Richard Dawkins
One thing I’ve learned: Life is not a movie. As long as you think it should be a movie, you will always be disappointed. Life is better than a movie. It’s more exciting. It’s more real.
As long as we see life as it “should” be (according to us or someone else), we can never appreciate it for what it is. How will you ever see the beauty before you if you can only see what is missing?
The Challenges:
Don’t Fear
a poem by Hannah LePage
Does it scare you that you will not be able to visit me when I am dead?
Are you afraid you will not know where to find me if you try and look?
Do you find it unsettling to think of me after I am no longer with you?
Don’t fear my passing. I will not be gone.
Don’t look for me. I will not be found in one place.
I am in the depths of your breath and the warmth of your skin.
You should not feel unsettled,
but rather peaceful, in knowing that you will never be alone.
You won’t need to keep a picture of me
or hoard my belongings in boxes. Those things are not me.
If you want to know me, know yourself.
If you want to remember me, remember yourself.
If you want to love me, love yourself.
I wrote this piece back in June while in Manhattan. I actually wasn’t inspired by death when I wrote the poem, but rather only my own precious life and those of my loved ones. It wasn’t until just yesterday, after the passing of a friend, that I reread my own words and felt the truth behind them resonate. If you’ve ever lost someone, especially of a young age, you know what a great difficulty it can be to make sense of.
I think during times of grief or loss, we so often feel alone and isolated, trapped inside our own pain and anger. During these times, we can be impossible to reach, even when surrounded by people. But death is something that we all will bear witness to and experience throughout our life, whether young or old. It is the only certainty that we all must face. What I am learning, day by day, is that we can find peace of mind in knowing that we don’t have to face it alone.
