The Book of Life

Everything that has a beginning has an ending.

Make your peace with that and all will be well.

~ Buddha

I've always looked at life as a novel.  Each experience, big, small, and in between, falls into a chapter in the novel, then on a page, then into a paragraph.  Some of the events don't earn a listing in the index but they are all there just the same. Sometimes we don't want the chapter to end and sometimes we want to read ahead to find out if the book is worth sticking with.  I'm trapped in the latter category right now.  If someone happened to pick up my life's novel and flipped it open to the current chapter and started reading, they'd never buy the book. They'd shake their head and say this book sucks and walk on to the next novel that caught their eye.  I get it.  This book does indeed suck.  But there must be more chapters ahead, right? They can't all suck.  They haven't all sucked.  There's volumes of happy in my novel, chapter upon chapter of joy and success and everything coming up roses.  But this particular chapter is so dark and so deep, with sadness saturating every page so that no matter how hard I try, I can't see the end of the chapter. I can't read ahead.  I can't even put the book down.  I can only read the page in front of me and remember that chapters eventually end and new chapters begin.  Hopefully better chapters, the kind where you can't wait to read the next page. The kind where you look back and you're so grateful that last horrible chapter ended and you're able to see the lessons learned.  The kind where all loose ends are tied up nice and pretty and everything makes sense; but that only happens in fairy tales, and fairy tales are not books of life.  Life novels don't always end up pretty.  Sometimes they end pretty abruptly. The author had nothing left so the readers are left with nothing but volumes of questions and buckets of tears.  A very unsatisfying ending to what was a promising, engaging novel.  Beth's book of life was short but it drew in countless people.  And it continues to do so, just as it continues on.  Endings are new beginnings.  We'll be able to catch up when our life novel comes to an end here on earth. Until then, we can only imagine the joy and peace and unconditional love she is experiencing in her current chapter.  And we can only continue reading our own book of life.

Beth ~ 2004