I was looking at some old pictures the other day - really old pictures.  In one of them my Dad was holding me and in the other my Mom was holding me.  My guess is that I was about a year old, which meant my Dad was 28 and my Mom was 26.  I had looked at those pictures before but this time I really looked at them.  I saw my parents as I remember them in many of my memories.  My other vivid memory of them was in the last few years preceding their death.

 

As I looked at those pictures I kept thinking they were gone; they all were gone.  My Dad is dead, my Mom is dead, and that little boy is now a 72 year old man.  I was there to watch it, to experience it, but it happened so slowly that I never even knew what was happening.  If there is one thing in life that is a perfect example of stealth, it is time.

 

Looking at those pictures as well as others that were taken throughout the years revealed that my parents gradually grew old and Johnnie disappeared to be replaced by John.  Life became death and the innocence of youth became the reality of old age.  There was no pause button, no stop button; life just kept unfolding - a show with no breaks for commercials.  And even if those buttons did exist, I wouldn't have been wise enough back then to use them.

 

Now the only evidence of what once was are pictures and memories.  In time that evidence will disappear.  The pictures will be kept for a generation or two then discarded when they become meaningless to their owners.  Memories will fade then the end of our time cease to exist.  All that we hold near and dear will become distant and worthless.

 

That is reality here on earth, that is the nature of life and death.  Those who lived hundreds of years ago are a testament to this simple truth.