On memories and sheep

Turns out counting sheep isn't as easy as it sounds.  The other night I laid in bed with a thousand thoughts running through my jet-lagged brain, trying to think of a way to distract myself long enough for sleep to kick in.  I thought to myself of how in children's books and in movies, people count sheep, and figured giving that a try couldn't hurt.  This, my friends, is not the simple task one would imagine it to be.  I remembered you're supposed to count sheep jumping over a fence, but in my mind it was a bridge.   And then my ridiculous brain starts having the following conversation with itself:

"Isn't that bridge supposed to be a fence?  And if there's a bridge over a river, can't the sheep just walk across it instead of jump?  Where are all these sheep coming from?  Oh no, now they're coming too fast for me to count them all.  I think I just saw a fox in there.  Does this actually work for anyone?"

Eventually I gave up and decided I need to hire someone to travel with me full time and sing me lullabies.  Like Josh Groban.  Or Rufus Wainwright.  Or the guy from Aqualung.

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On a much more somber note, I was thinking about the complexities of life and death recently.  Or actually, the not-so-complexities.  The relentlessness and unfairness of time and age.  I had the opportunity to visit my grandfather the other day for the first time in years.  Grandpa has dementia, and doesn't remember who I am.  This in itself is sad, but what really breaks my heart is that he doesn't even know all of who HE is.  My grandpa was intelligent, active, loved to tell jokes, and was always singing, not to mention was a respected missionary and theological professor for many years.  Where is the joy in life when you've lost your sense of self that is so closely wrapped up in your memories?  Say you do figure it out one day--there's no guarantee you'll remember it the next.

This got me thinking about the verse in the Bible about the wages of sin being death (bear with me, this jump will make sense in a minute).  I tend to think of death as the moment you exhale that last breath, and you cease to be, at least in this dimension.  But I can see now that death is in every moment.  Each moment to moment that the LIFE in us is gradually diminished.  That last breath is just the final spark being extinguished.  Every instant of aging is the slow process of death.
    Don't worry, people.  I'm not going to end this on that depressing note, so keep reading, lest any of you walk away to go find a bottle of pills (or a bottle of gin).  There's another half of that Bible verse I was thinking about--the gift of God is eternal life.  Each day draws us closer to eternity.  I guess the beauty of this is that as our bodies and minds endure the gravitational pull towards eternal death, our souls are being drawn towards life.  In my mind I see it as a chart, which I tried to draw for those of us who are more visual:

I am hopeful in my belief that Grandpa's soul is being perfected, even as his memories are lost.  I can't wait for the day I can talk to him again when he will be the full person that he is.