Alone

WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Wednesday, December 22, 2021, 4:34 a.m.

            I sometimes worry about someday being alone, an old man who has lost his loving partner and is, both mentally and physically, far from friends and family. Right now, at 80, I have both my devoted wife and loving family very close by, but I am occasionally uneasy about the aloneness the future might bring. 

            This morning, however, as sometimes happens, I see once again, very clearly, that I can’t possibly ever be alone. In fact, nothing can ever be alone, because everything – every person, place, thing, event, situation – is not alone, but all-one. The universe – all of reality – is a single, intermingled, effortlessly flowing force, and I am as much a part of that force as a passing breeze is part of the unending wind of the heavens. When I imagine a slight waft of wind worrying about being alone someday,  I see how silly it is for me to think I can ever be anything but an inseparable part of the all-one reality of the universe. I am as inseparable from boundless reality as a ray of light is inseparable from the sun. Whether I’m sitting in our cozy home with Delycia and not far from my affectionate friends and family, as I am now, or lying in a bed in a nursing home sometime in the future, seemingly far from faithful friendship and love, I will never be alone, but will always be all-one, an indissoluble element in the vast and everlastingly peaceful mystery called the universe. I will probably smile a lot because the universe is always smiling, and I’ll probably feel as safe as a star among the measureless, ‘all-one’ family of stars in the sky.  

            How lucky can an 80-year-old boy get?!