Life and death are universal concepts that govern existence but are beyond full human understanding. They are intertwined and give meaning to each other. Between them is human memory, which connects individuals to their life histories and forms social bonds between people. Memory makes life experiences and the concepts of life and death more concrete by recalling loved ones who have died. Though individuals are ephemeral, they are part of the universal fabric of existence. Those who have died are like fallen leaves that decompose but nourish new growth, as the dead return to the universal fabric but remain part of it, connected through memory to the living.

1. A Short Reflection on Life and Death
Life and death, liquidy osmotic reflections of the others face,
occupy a realm beyond true human understanding and
comprehension, in both a rational-actual and metaphysical sense,
yet it is these universal absolutes that govern our existence, and
mould, through experience, our past, present, and future
behaviour. Singly, conceptually at least, they are rendered
meaningless (what is it to be animate if the inanimate cannot be
considered?); as each occupies a relativistic position, they exist
only for, and because of, each other, entwined in an eternal saga
and act on a universal stage and scale that spans many finite
existences.
Between these two apparently antagonistic foes lies the linkage
of human memory. The power to recall past events, ideas,
thoughts and emotions is the continuity that connects an
individual to his or her own life history; forms the essence central
to what one terms human nature, represents the conduit that
acts between the unconscious and the conscious informing our
thought processes, as well as providing the social cohesiveness
that creates the social bond between individuals. That social
bond is important and cannot be over-stated; it is that very
sociality that conditions what we imagine when we speak of
humanity. It is through the sociality of memory that we attach
such importance to our kin. Memory acts to make real the life we
experience, the almost intangible extremes of conceiving life and
death are made less abstract by our memory of kin past, and
knowledge of our own future mortality. It is that sense of loss and
suffering we feel at the absence of a close family member or

2. friend that makes and creates such a significant part of our
humanity. A sense that has molded the development of human
civilization since its inception, and without which would be to
severely degrade our understanding of what it is, and means, to
be human.
Our ephemeral existences may ebb and flow, may be constructed
and deconstructed, but they are, we are, simply the universe
manifest, a microcosm, a conscious collection of atoms, part of
the universal matrix, the fabric and essence of the firmament,
seeking to understand itself.
Those that once walked with us, guided us, and cared for us, but
have now departed our company along life s journey, are like the
falling leaves from an autumnal tree. Landing on the soil they
gradually degrade and metamorphose into ever smaller
constituents, but in so doing they become the basis on which that
tree grows, develops, and exists. Through that transcendental
renewal process they once again become part of the tree that
created them. Similarly, our finite constructions return to the
universal fabric, that network of interwoven lattices, through
which our own essences flow. Though those that have passed
may have seemingly departed us, relinquishing their physical
form, they have not lost their existence. Rather, they have simply
been renewed and entered the next dimension of their journey.
Their molecules and atoms remain, though in different forms,
becoming part of the reservoir of elemental constituents from
which new life can be formed. In the same way we have not lost
them, we are part of the same fabric, the same universal matter,
thus they are forever concatenated to us and therefore with us

3. whenever we should wish, for we have the continuity of
memory s touch .
By A. P. Hejnowicz