A Thousand Generations

A Thousand Generations…

I was hiking a meandering and rolling fire road on a cold and overcast day. The fire road briefly abutted a very large cemetery that drifted down the hillside into the valley below. An old gate separated the fire road from the cemetery.

A young Asian woman was standing at the gate watching my approach. She was elegantly dressed; hat and clothes all in black, covered in a strikingly beautiful, three-quarter length purple overcoat.

She was holding a beautiful bouquet of Birds of Paradise flowers.

She was looking for her grandmother’s grave.

It started to drizzle and raindrops began to gather around the rim of her hat.

She asked me if the cemetery continued on my side of the gate.

I said no.

She thanked me, turned and walked away.

As I watched her purple overcoat fade into mist I was in awe of a profound truth…

For a thousand generations someone survived disease, famine, plagues, wars and life just long enough for her to be born and for a thousand generations someone survived disease, famine, plagues, wars and life just long enough for me to be born, so that we, two complete strangers, from entirely different continents, could share the briefest of moments on opposite sides of a cemetery gate… in the rain.

The profound timing and the millions upon millions of minute details that had to magically string together for a collective ten thousand years to be able to meet at that cemetery gate is astounding to ponder.

Life is a strange and precious gift…

Strange, because life can be taken but never owned…

And

Precious, because life can be shared and given to another...