Nec mortem effugere quisquam nec amorem potest.
(Publilius Syrus, Sententia 433)

pron = neck MOHR-tehm ef-FOO-geh-reh KWIS-kwahm neck ah-MOH-rem POH-test.

No one is able to escape either death or love.

Comment: If you have lived more than a few years, you know for truth that no one is able to escape death--in our relationships and ultimately, in our own journey. And either joyfully or painfully, or more commonly I suspect, in some combination of the two you have discovered that there is no escaping love. In the name of love we can experience devastating torture and transforming transcendence. Most of us do not escape without some roller-coaster ride including both extremes.

And sometimes, some individuals find that in the same unspeakable moment, they cannot escape death and love simultaneously. Just moments before considering this proverb and what I would write, a friend emailed me that friends of hers had just been in a car accident, and one of their children was killed.

I've walked to death's door with two different families as their children died. It was many years ago, now, but those experiences changed my life forever. They made my life much, much more tender.
They made my vision broader, and my experience of mystery deeper. I presided over the funerals of these two children at a time when I had a child the same age. I did not need to imagine the pain. I did not need to imagine the love. And I only had to imagine for a moment the excruciating pain of the two combined--death and love at the door together.

Those events strike us hard and blindingly, but I would suggest to us all that today, right now, there are those in our lives whom we can touch, listen to, support, and respect. They are our beloveds. Some of them have caused us pain. Some of them have brought us joy. And in this moment, we need only be grateful that we have had the wordless experience of their love--and humble enough to know that death will come soon enough.