“ Everything is temporary!”

What it means after everything else fades

I love all things Italian and all things New York City. So, I guess that’s why the movie Moonstruck earns a place in my heart.

One particular scene really stands out to me now. Sitting at the kitchen table late at night, Cosmo is less than enthusiastic about his daughter’s engagement. He makes a snide remark about the man’s pinky ring she has on her left hand. She quickly says, “It’s temporary!” He fires back, “Everything is temporary, that don’t excuse nuthin’!” And it’s clear that this reaction is coming from his own personal existential crisis. That particular line really stands out to me. I’ve lost so much of what I thought would always be there for me. It makes me realize that nothing really lasts and that feeling is with me every single day. Not just some idea I think about sometimes.

Relationships fracture, or fade away. Jobs come to an end. Our bodies change. Even the roles we play, parent, child, sibling, spouse, shift or completely dissolve. And yet I think something actually does stay.

I don’t know if I can ever quite come to terms with the harsh reality of the impermanence in my life, but I do believe that love remains. The stories my father, a Navy veteran, used to tell with such passion and detail, are now just recordings that I play on occasion where I’m the only one listening. My love for gardening came from my mother‘s joy found in tending plants and watching them thrive. The daily routines I had with my husband are suddenly gone, vanished in an instant, and my mom’s last days were marked by pain and family betrayal that left me dealing with both overwhelming grief and the tough lessons I learned about setting boundaries.

Each loss stripped away another layer of illusion that my life would unfold just as I had planned. However, I do feel love. I truly believe love doesn’t vanish when the person does, it transforms. It sinks deep down in your bones, deeper into our memory and somehow knows how to evolve with us. I feel like my loved ones who have transitioned are still right here with me. On a rare occasion, I have a dream that feels like a visitation. I awake feeling so elated and a sense of peace that transcends all understanding.

So, I hold on to love…