Everything is temporary.

Since learning about my dad’s illness, grief comes and goes in waves.  Sometimes the waves overcome me and make me stop what I am doing. Then I cry and feel the intensity of that wave.  Like surfing.  It goes up and comes back down again.

Through this process, there has been an increasing sense of clarity.  There is a force making me let go of my firm grip on how things are right now.  Everything is temporary.  Everything I love will eventually fade, change or pass away. This moment is all that any of us have.  This is both terrifying and comforting.

What happens after we die?  Why are we alive in the first place? I think about it a lot these days.  The possibilities of heaven and reincarnation and karma are comforting and fascinating.  Life is a great mystery.  One of the benefits of dying, I suppose, is finding out once and for all what happens to us once we leave our bodies.

We watched the movie, A Dog’s Purpose, which so beautifully portrays the circle of life and the purpose of living.  “A dog’s purpose is to be here now.” Maybe that is our purpose, too.