As It Comes, So It Goes. That's Life. By Observers

I was reading the day’s paper earlier today - the TV was on in the background. I had just switched it from a news channel. -CSI, Las Vegas was on, a rerun I believe. It was in the last few minutes of the show, and Grissom was doing his typical closing mono-moral scene. He was reading from an unknown book, and I missed the first few words. (Wish I had TIVO). Anyway, I don’t know if the story he was reading were words written by a real or fictitious person. It was a story about a person’s view of watching Nature. It went something like this;
‘ ’ While standing in my favorite spot upon a large shelf of rock in a clearing of the tall trees, high upon the side of my mountain, I spy upon the morning sky just above the distant horizon, a familiar sight. It is a distinctive black dot, zigzagging through the midmorning sky. I say to myself, “Here It Comes.” Then I watch the black dot as it grows ever larger. I know from past experience that this little black dot is, in fact, a magnificent great bird, one with a wingspan wider than I am tall. It follows the crease in the mountains where the river runs like a wavy ribbon upon a velvet pillow. Back and forth. Back and forth. Up and down and up and down. Sometimes so high it is almost out of sight, and other times skimming along just above the upper branches of the tall trees, becoming nearly invisible amongst the steely treetops. I stand perfectly still, knowing that in a little while, this beautiful flying lifeform will pass right near me, just as it always does on its morning way up the river. It must be the lay of the landscape that brings it so close to me, or maybe it is something else - I don’t know. But I do know that it is always a thrill when it happens. It always flies, majestic like, in my direction, almost like it knows I am there waiting. It takes its time, growing ever larger as it nears - then in what seems like a flash There It Is - big and bold and beautiful and mulit-colored, too - and looking directly at me, just as if it was bidding me both a happy hello and a sad goodbye in one big swooping gesture - and then, in the blink of an eye, it has past me by, though its scent lingers just briefly before dissipating into the forest air. What a thrill this is. Even though it’s just a few fleeting moments and then it’s gone, it is a thrill I love. And so it goes. I watch as the big bird follows the zig and the zag of the winding river, growing ever smaller in the distant sky. And then it disappears, and with the same degree of awe I had at its coming, I strain my eyes and say to myself, “There It Goes.”
And then I smile at the memory and at knowing that, undoubtably, somewhere not to far from me on another mountainside on up the river, another lucky soul is looking to the downstream horizon and exclaiming, “Here It Comes” ‘’.

I like that story. Mine, unfortunately, is longer and not nearly as good as the one Grissom read, his was much more poetic. However, my version expresses the same parable about Life. Both people and things come into our lives and then are gone. And for that matter, Life, Itself, comes to us, and then is gone. And so the moral of this little story is that Life is short and, indeed, we should enjoy every moment while its here, because soon enough this too shall pass.