Lily and the Octopus

by Steven Rowley

I have to be better about living in the not knowing.

Life is all around you and in you. Let the sunshine in!

Because dogs live in the present. Because dogs don’t hold grudges. Because dogs let go of all of their anger daily, hourly, and never let it fester. They absolve and forgive with each passing minute. Every turn of a corner is the opportunity for a clean slate. Every bounce of a ball brings joy and the promise of a fresh chase.

“Dogs are always good and full of selfless love. They are undiluted vessels of joy who never, ever deserve anything bad that happens to them.

He continues about how what we have can be taken from us. Even what we have that is special. And when it is taken, we will be tested.

It is in this pain that we are tested. Since I am in this pain, the pain of having what is special taken from me, I look inside myself and I don’t like what I see: a man who is broken and alone.

Somewhere, sometime, I stopped really living. I stopped really trying. And I don’t understand why. I had done all the right things.

And then I didn’t. I don’t understand how my life got so empty, or why the octopus came, or why everyone eventually goes away.

So many adventures we had. And I loved every one.

To die would be an awfully big adventure. But it’s not true. Life is the real adventure. Having the hurricane inside you is the true adventure.

All of this tests my beliefs. I don’t believe in God; I don’t believe in an afterlife. I do believe you live and you die. I do believe death is eternal nothingness. I do believe the body is just a shell.

A heart is judged not by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.