We live as if there is no death. We die as if we have never lived.
Sometimes, when my kids are both in bed and it is quiet at home I think of this. Life, as it is, feels so real. So deep. So engaging. So demanding. So big. I am at the center of it. Am I not so incredibly important?
Exhausted but fulfilled I am walking over to my own bed.
A few moments after I realize that on one day, it is all over for me. I will no longer be. My kids will be on their own. They might cry a bit, but soon also I will be forgotten. Life, as it is, can be so harsh, so shallow, so deceptive, so unreal. That what seemed so big, might one day be very small. This contradiction sometimes scares me; in other times I feel invited to be in deep awe for Life itself.
What to me is the most interesting of this, is that we all face this very same realization one day. Without escape. One day, it is over. For each of us. You also, one day will have no more breath to breathe.
But, the more I accept this truth – the less heavy Life itself becomes. The more Life seems to invite me to simply “be”. Not overthinking it. To cherish it. To live it with deep presence for myself and others in it. And especially, with presence for the few of them I choose to live, and die for.