Solar Eclipse

Wasn’t too many years ago we experienced a pretty decent one here in the US. The upcoming one on August 1st appears to be the most dramatic in China. The Ancients feared these events, often fearing the eventual doom they claimed was predicted by the blotting out of the sun. I must admit that it does give one cause to wonder, particularly with the upcoming Olympics’ in that same country. Perhaps just an interesting coincidence or perhaps something more that we don’t quite comprehend or even believe in.

These are the kinds of events that give many of us cause to sit and ponder such thoughts as our place in this universe as well as this lifetime. I often think about how history is altered and on a much smaller scale, how things like our family history can be altered by such events. Perhaps a bit peculiar, but as I watch my brother-in-law start to fade now, perhaps with only weeks remaining in his lifetime, I give a bit of thought to my own kids and their choice to stop communicating with me. If I died suddenly tomorrow, where would all the family photo’s I’ve saved end up? What about the things I have kept in my house, hoping to pass on to them some day after I gave them the complete history about those things so they might cherish them as much as I do? Is it too caulis to simply reduce it all down to dollars and cents and have a check sent to them? Wow … so many different ways the path can turn; the responsibility is a bit daunting.

I see these same events through the eyes of my own sister and wonder, at just 60 years old, how will her own life change yet again. A number of husbands before finding a really great and decent guy and after just fourteen years of happiness, it all gets swept aside. Just another eclipse in her life and when it’s over things won’t be quite the same.

Sometimes, when we are faced with such drastic changes … like dating again after a long marriage or the loss of a loved one to the inevitable end of life, it can seem like gloom or just as easily like a new sunrise and a new day.

Perhaps it is the efforts of grandfather trying to perform that little CTL-ALT-DEL in our life; give us a little re-boot, and help us start again….