You're searching, Joe, for things that don't exist; I mean beginnings. Ends and beginnings -- there are no such things. There are only middles. - Robert Frost
You know, I have a bit of a morbid streak. (I think most people do, but they won't admit it.) And I was remembering the day that my beloved Grandpa died some four years ago. My family gathered in the hospital room and we watched him slip away. It wasn't sudden, like you see on TV. It was more of a fading, so much so that we aren't really sure when exactly he was gone. His heartbeat just grew slower and slower, until it was so faint. It was one of the saddest experiences I've ever had, and yet one of the most special. Odd how that works.
So, I thought of him and that day when I first read Robert Frost's wise words, because there really was no defined "death". That moment wasn't clear. But if you think about it, there's so little definition to our beginning. When do we become real? At conception? When we appear human in the ultrasounds? When we're born? When, exactly, is our beginning?
And so I've come to realize that life's definition, its truth isn't defined by birth or death. It's everything in between that's important. Besides birth and death aren't really the beginning and end of anything. Rather, they are continuations, only in different forms. This is comforting, isn't it?
You know, I have a bit of a morbid streak. (I think most people do, but they won't admit it.) And I was remembering the day that my beloved Grandpa died some four years ago. My family gathered in the hospital room and we watched him slip away. It wasn't sudden, like you see on TV. It was more of a fading, so much so that we aren't really sure when exactly he was gone. His heartbeat just grew slower and slower, until it was so faint. It was one of the saddest experiences I've ever had, and yet one of the most special. Odd how that works.
So, I thought of him and that day when I first read Robert Frost's wise words, because there really was no defined "death". That moment wasn't clear. But if you think about it, there's so little definition to our beginning. When do we become real? At conception? When we appear human in the ultrasounds? When we're born? When, exactly, is our beginning?
And so I've come to realize that life's definition, its truth isn't defined by birth or death. It's everything in between that's important. Besides birth and death aren't really the beginning and end of anything. Rather, they are continuations, only in different forms. This is comforting, isn't it?
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