Years ago I visited an elderly care center with a friend of mine...we went to see her grandfather before he died. I'd never met him before. He was in a wheel chair in a hallway, bent and shriveled, head bowed as if asleep or already gone...when I noticed him, he looked up at me through glass lenses which were as thick as the bottom of a pop bottle, accenting the size and meaning in his beckoning eyes. His fixed on mine, and a wizened hand motioned toward me to come to him. I stood by his side, he motioned me closer, closer...'til my ear was next to his mouth. He whispered, "In the end it's the wink of an eye!". Then his head dropped again, seemingly inattentive. That was nearly 4 decades ago. I've carried his message with me ever since, just as death has been riding on my left shoulder since my first combat experience.
The world ends for some 160 thousand people each day, as it will surely for each of us eventually...which is what makes our todays all the more precious. We are given the present, this gift...and our sensory organs to physically experience it. We build tactile memories through touching the Earth and her beauty in some way, each day. Through and with all our relations.
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