Beginnings and Endings

Beginnings and Endings 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Through my life I have had many chances to see the sun’s rising and sets.  The windows of the milking parlor faced east so there were very few mornings when the sun’s advent went unnoticed.  However for the same reasons I needed to make the effort to, on most occasions, see the sun depart from the western sky.  As a photographer I need to understand light.  Sunsets are different than sunrises.  The sky is cooler in the morning and the colors tend to be as well.

 

But long days taught me more than the color of the fading sky.  It taught me about beginnings and endings.  People are mortal beings.  We are born and die.  Beginnings and endings seem so much of our lives.  We measure days, weeks, month, and years.  Arbitrary slices of this thing we call time.  Time matters to us…excessively. 

Even so throughout our lives, we deal with beginnings and endings.  Our first day at kindergarten to our final graduation.  The first day at our first real job until retirement. The first kiss to our tearful parting. Each thing has its beginning…and its ending.  Thoughts about endings make us morbid.  We place too much emphasis on the beginning and the ending, that we forget all the between.  Yes, the light of day begins with the sun’s rising and ends when the orb sinks below the horizon…but it is the in-between…all the hours, minutes, moments of life that matter.  The sun’s advent and departure might be sights to behold, but make up such a small part of the day.  Is it not the same with all things?  Captivated by fresh new beginnings we overlook the miracles in each moment.  Fearful of endings, we can stagnate unable to see the joy that surrounds us…now.  Yes, life is filled with beginnings and endings, but it is the grand in-betweens in which we live.

And I see another lesson, hard learned.  The sunset ends the daylight portion of the day… but the day goes on.  We have picked midnight for the instant of one day’s end and the next one’s beginning.  But in truth time flows along from dark to light to dark again.  Much like a stream of water.  The day does not truly end, it’s just the way we keep track.  So I take you back to the beginning of this post, or near the beginning in any case…to our mortality.  I have no doubt that my ability to breathe does not, exclusively, frame my existence.  I am certain that I was alive before February 8th 1952, my birthday.  I have confidence that I will live long after my heart pumps its last beat.  Endings are not always…endings.  Most times they are gateways to something different, maybe something better…maybe lots better. 

So I should take hold of each day, with gratitude, and live it.  That I do what I can to help others…at this moment.  To be kind.  To try to understand.  To be someone’s friend.  To share the love I have been given.  To be patient, as much as I’m able.  To look forward to new opportunities that will certainly come along.  To recognize that change is not the enemy.  To be fully engaged in life…each and every moment of it.  And to care…really care.  

I should not dwell upon all the beginnings I have seen…but I probably will.  Kinda’ human don’t you think?   But as I draw a breath and look forward to all the things that lie ahead…I do not fear.  For life is filled with beginnings…and endings…and beginnings again… 

(603 Words)         7-26-2016