There is no avoiding it. We can turn our heads the other way, we can pretend it doesn't exist but we cannot avoid it.  Not only does it come for us all, we deal with the results of it every single day of our life.

We eat it, we wear it, we fuel our cars with the past results of it. We see it and hear of it every day, but oh how we refuse to look it in the eye.

 How many cars pass this scene every hour ? How many people in those apartments have looked upon it ?

My wife thinks I have a morbid streak and am a freak for taking pictures like these. Maybe I am by "normal" standards. I prefer to think of myself as a realist.

The longer I live, the more death becomes real to me. Not only do more and more  people that I know die, but I also begin to realize my own mortality. By the national averages, and the past history of my family, I should probably have about another 20-25 more years in this world and then I'll share the fate of this WhiteTail deer. That is IF I make it through  today. One never knows.

Instead of denying it, and being repulsed by it, I am thankful that I have the opportunity to begin to come to grips with it now. There is a lot to come to grips with. I mean really come to grips with. 

This deer was probably feeding with a friend and maybe her yearling children when the great equalizer came for her. What's left here ? A defilement of the body. The life force is gone and the body is defiled.

Our bodies will all become defiled at some point. Whether by the birds as in this case, or by maggots and bacteria if we get buried, or by the ravages of heat and flame should we get cremated. Either way, our earthly skins will meet a similarly destructive fate.

When I see this, I try to realize deep inside that "I" am NOT the body. "I" will not suffer this fate, but what I am currently identifying myself with, my body, will indeed be ravaged until it no longer exists. 

Nobody knows empirically whether our soul exists outside of the body, lives on after the body dies. We hope and have faith of such things but do not really know it. But we do know that the memories of us do last beyond. The love we impart while here, the courage we show, the humanity we exhibit, the kindnesses we do, these things will be remembered about us after we are no longer part of the physical world.

Look on it one more time.

Nothing should make us feel more alive then when we REAL-IZE that today we could meet the same fate. For REAL.

To be able to live each day as if it were our last. To have the ability to "number our days" as the Psalmist said. These are things I strive for. Gruesome as these images are to our sense of being and sense of self, they are reality. I see no point in denying what is there in nature for us to see and to learn from.

If you've gotten this far in my indulgence, then thank you for the kindness of your attention for that long. I hope this blog will repay your kindness with at least a small amount of extra knowledge of LIFE !!

May 2013 bring you LIFE every day !