If the encounter is brief,
while you are still you and the face to face is just a small sign,
a wink from her passing by, or a near miss quickly gone,
the thought that you are about to die is
- afterwards -
a magic wand that made your life substantially longer, whatever its remaining duration may be in fact.
There is no more convincing argument to live better each moment left; or at least differently*.
*
You felt that this was it, the whole thing, frozen, with all those lose threads and unfinished plans, that which you started and never ended or not even started but dreamt. It takes a life to miss so many things...
Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. [1]
*
Strange! When, my dog, Tao died in my hands, I felt shrieking pain. More than this time for myself. That death felt unbearable. All I suffer now is sadness; deep, gray, heavy, like the distant humming of rising storm. I felt the same years ago during an earthquake waiting to see if I live or not. Nothing, is coming closer.
"What I possess, as if far off I see,
And what is gone, becomes reality." [2]
*
Winning some, losing some. Life. Not bad after all. What happened to me was because of me. I achieved to only do what I wanted... Well, what I could...
Reluctantly, I draw a line and avoid to sum up that rich harvest but the total is there:
Indeed, I am nothing.
*
Suddenly, the wheel starts screeching again, everything hurts, the void is not yet due.
I see returning things I can decide and do. A living dog is better than a dead lion [2]. And I look again at the belongings and worries that own me - they were vanishing, dust, valueless, one moment ago - now coming back for another reprieve.
I can read more books. Ask more questions. And think. I can plant tomatoes again, a tree, mow the grass, rest my eyes on the horizon, paint the South wall and fix the old roof. True, all this is for the house of tomorrow where I will not be allowed; but my hands will still host those capricious visitors, my heirs.
And I can still write such clumsy little lines, longing without hope to leave in words a trail of the disquiet little spark of spirit I am.
Afterthoughts:
I read my words and now I say: "These are afterthoughts. What do I know what it means to really meet death, not its shadow!"
_________________________________
* My son Daniel found the same and expressed it better than me.
[1] Buddha, The Diamond Sutra translated by Kenneth Saunders
[2] Goethe, Faust prologue
[2] Ecclesiastes ix:4
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