Souvenir. Memento mori. Memento vivere. Remember. Remember you will die, remember to live.

So much effort goes into preserving our misguided belief that this one immediate life we are living is singular - that somehow if we work harder, live cleaner, study harder, earn more, do more, keep more - that we are guaranteed some kind of certainty of entitlement, of permanence. Then, when some unforseen tragedy occurs or we are reminded of our mortality, we are shocked and indignant. We spend so much time trying to forget that we will die that we often forget we are living right here in this moment.

What are the possibilities for joy and love when we think of our one individual experience as just a season of a much greater timeline? What preciousness might we take in if we live holding both things always to be true: that we are alive and that we someday will not be? That when we cease, ourselves, to live on the earth, we join those who came before us and become memories to those who we leave behind.