Impermanance

 Impermanence seems to be what the Universe wants me to look at lately. My 89 year old Father spent the last two weeks in the hospital. My daughter moved out of the family home into her own apartment. I had to let some friendships go when I decided they felt unhealthy to me. And than, when I finally caught a breather, the news of loss and destruction in Japan had my and the world's attention.
  Sigh. Loss is nothing new to anyone who's been alive awhile. None of us get to live a life without it. From the small ones to the one's you can only hope you'll never have to face, loss is as inevitable as the sun setting.
 So why do we always seem surprised or filled with disbelief when loss visits us? What is it about something that is so obvious and commonplace, yet we still struggle with it's reality when we have to face it ourselves?  I think our nature is to cling to things, even painful things sometimes, so we can feel more secure in a world of uncertainty. When we love someone, we make them ours and they become a part of who we are. To lose them is to lose a part of ourselves, our role in that person's life, a part of our very identity. If I am no longer a parent, a husband or wife, someone's child, who am I?  How can we be more at peace with the inevitability of loss?
 My answer has been to allow it to remind me of the preciousness of the present moment. Rather than fearing it, I am trying to see it as a gift. Awareness of the reality of things passing away in my own life keeps me appreciative, makes me softer and less likely to take the people I love for granted. Facing other people's losses and pain causes me to be a more compassionate person and makes many of my perceived calamities fade away in comparison. Impermanence, when kept in our awareness, can serve to keep us awake.  It can remind us that the rose will fade soon so we should stop now to take a whiff. It can keep our anger from becoming bigger than our impulse to say "I love you" to a challenging teenager. But, most importantly I think, it can compel us to look more deeply into the stillness and wisdom at our center that knows, in the bigger picture, all separation is really just an illusion anyway.