For many of us, these are times of weddings and newborn babes. All of a sudden, we are mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, homeowners and caregivers. How absurd to think that just a few years ago we were babies ourselves. Forgotten are the tortured souls of teenagers, the jubilant self-discovery of college years, the existential crises and excitement of not knowing what shape life after college would take.

Stranger still to think that in a few short years, we will begin to know what death is like. I wonder how our perspectives will change when the time comes for our parents and friends, our husbands and wives, when we feel it begin to creep up on ourselves. What will we see from those tall heights before the final mountain pass, when we look out over the lands we once walked through the dusty haze of our late afternoon light, when all our pride and pettiness are stripped from us, and the backs of our shoulders feel the cold touch of shadows from the pass...

I hope we will look back, and see that we did something good with our lives. I'm not sure what better thing there is to hope for in this world.