Love. Life. Death.

As a child all I ever experienced were love and life, life and love, always hand in hand. To live was to love and to love was to live. When I started to get a little older and my dad was diagnosed with cancer, these two concepts (love and life) puzzled me. What did one mean without the other? Are they without each other at all?

As I am sitting in my dorm room, I reflect on my favorite philosopher's words of wisdom, "To be important, existence doesn't have to go on any longer than a moment." This being that existence is existence, there will never be more than one way to skin that cat. However, jokes aside, life is choosing to do more with one moment than exist. Which, in turn, brings love into play. That same philosopher stated, "Love is an act of surrender to another person…but…never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command." All of this, the first time I heard it, befuddled me. After some thought, I came to the realization that love is not at one's ability to command. One does not choose love nor can one force it. Still, what does it all mean? Why does it even matter? Well, here's what I think:

I hated everything after my dad died. I still hate everything sometimes. Every day is hard because I will never love life the same way I did before my dad died.

But that's okay.

Life and love go hand in hand just as love and death go hand in hand. Existence can go on forever, but you only need one moment to truly experience life and to understand that simply existing is far too unrewarding. For the longest time, I thought that life was what I had and now I am only existing.

I was far from wrong.

Life isn't about loving every moment or loving certain parts, life is about embracing love in the moments we exist. So, I ask myself again, will I ever love life again? The answer is no. Love is everlasting, but love is also ever-changing. I will never love life nor embrace it the same way as I did before my father passed. However, I am now finding a new way to embrace love. I have found a new way to make my life more than an existence through love's embrace.

In closing, one more quote from Alan Watts:

"Now I understand why we die. The reason we die is to give us the opportunity to understand what life's all about."

Without love, one cannot live, only exist. Without life, one cannot die. Without death, one cannot embrace love. Death is not purely biological oblivion; death gives us the opportunity to love and love gives us the opportunity to truly live.

Be humbled to embrace love. Be willing to seize life. Be grateful to experience death.