A neighbour on my street died last night. As gathering neighbours whispered their concerns, the whoops and hollers of a pool party desecrated the solemnity of the event. In the living room of the man’s house the emergency workers practiced their life saving arts to no avail. The eventually retreated quietly back to their station. Scenes of mourning were hidden behind closed curtains.
Up and down the city streets people lived their their lives unaware of the mortal drama unfolding in that living room. The following morning the city awakened, virtually unaltered by the death of a husband, a father and a friend. There is something both comforting and disconcerting in the fact that this man’s passing impacted the world so little. Life ends, yet it continues on.
This evening neighbourhood children laugh and play in the street, unconscious of the sorrow in their midst. They’re unwitting participants in the journey that has persevered for thousands of years; one established by the Creator himself. It’s a journey that ended for one man in the living room of his home in the darkness of last night.
The Pilgrim and The Monk 
I once misunderstood a phone message, and, for a long half hour, thought that my brother had been killed in a car accident. I remember the sense of unreality that the world could carry on as though nothing had changed, when everything had. I have never forgotten that feeling.