A Common Reminder

Long before Coronavirus, we all receive a common reminder of the temporariness of life.

Wendy Lustbader, mental health counselor, writes of this reminder,

“ ... we are in a slow process of dying. A pain that will not cease or an injury that will not heal announces the arrival of limitations we have always feared. From the beginning, we know that our capacities are temporary, yet it startles us once we actually start losing them.”

As a write this, I’m reading news from the US that points to Coronavirus as becoming the leading cause of death in America. And the so-called “second wave” of virus-related new deaths in Japan after lifting an initial lockdown.

We grieve with this recent news and knowledge. And, realize how the common reminder is truly part of everyone’s human life experience.

I think you and I have always been aware of this common reminder somewhere in the back of our minds.

But it’s some thought usually not taken out and examined as I do now on this post. It’s not that talked about and thought about in the dailyness of our lives.

Until now ... with the Coronavirus ravaging our lives and societies.

In many respects, this predicament we’re all in is heightening our feelings of vulnerability and fears.

But at the same time ... inviting us to look at the value of what we had done with our lives.