Leaving the apartment, I saw a dead armadillo, the icon of Texas. Some may argue that Willie Nelson or bluebonnets or the Alamo or the Cowboys are more iconic of the Lone Star State and they may be right, but the armadillo is the Tasmanian Devil of Texas. We know he’s there and he represents hard for Texas, the same way the Tasmanian Devil represents the lonesome island south of Australia. We don’t see either of them all the time, but we know they’re there.

The point is, he was dead and gone.  The details can be spared in this note, but they cannot be spared from my mind’s eye. I saw the terrible images of death in his eyes. We try to ignore loss and pretend we live forever as people and animals and bugs die every second.

Our eyes are only open for maybe 2/3 of the day and we dream fantasies the other third. I like to believe the energy we created during our life translates into our spiritual power in the great beyond. I like to believe that life is truly everlasting and only the body dies. I understand all things must pass and that matter cannot be created or destroyed.

Hopefully, that little bloated and yet still handsome armadillo found his energy distributed into a baby bird or a redwood sapling for all to feel his special nature. All life is sacred, all life is fleeting, all life means death, and all life can be is what we make of it.  Even if we don’t make it as remarkable as we want, as long as we try to be happy and compassionate, we did well.