Starting at the end.

This series of photos, found by way of Dooce (her post here), is ...

I don't have words.

Dooce's 1,000+ commenters used good ones: beautiful. haunting. moving.

A word of caution: don't click on the link if you're not up to it, for whatever reason. It is from an exhibit of black-and-white photographic portraits taken before, and after, death. Text accompanies the photographs, providing a glimpse into the person who was present in the "before" photo, departed in the second.

The message is: life is not all there is. One commenter put it a bit trenchantly: you can go between one click of the shutter and the next. Live before the second click.

Indeed.

I am over 50 years old. Every day is a gift, to be unwrapped and lived. In fact, my life is happier, better, and far, far more delightful than at any time since my childhood. It has taken resolve and determined self-discovery, leaving behind the notions which bound my thinking and kept me shut in and frightened of every day.

I'm a believer. That will be clear as I develop this blog. And I have a friend, the dearest of friends, who became the man I love more years ago than I care to count, now. That story, too, may be told as this blog unfolds.

But, for now, let's start with the end. I've been with Death. While I know it is not the end, it does mean the end of our life here, on this planet, in this universe. In two hundred years will anyone know or care about the things which trouble us today?

Or, in two hundred years, there might be something we left behind, unknowingly or by intention, which will be our gift to the future. For many of us, it's our children. I have none. For some, it's our work. My paid employment is not something I will ever be remembered for. I think we each know what our own, particular, special gift can be. For one, it's the bridge built - literally or figuratively. For another, a good and helpful law. A third might leave behind music, or art ... photographs.

For me, the gift I have to offer my future is writing.

Contemplating the end, I have the resolve to begin.