04/07/2025
My father was born on the 4th of July.
Today would’ve been his birthday.
As I get older, these days feel different. Birthdays. Anniversaries. They bring more reflection than before: on time, on mortality, on what we leave behind.
Maybe it’s age. Maybe it’s the quiet awareness that mortality comes closer each year. One day, I’ll lose my mother too. And these thoughts about impermanence and legacy have been sitting heavier with me.
I’ve been noticing the contrasts of aging more. Stiff joints. Slower mornings. A body that no longer moves like it did in my twenties. But with those changes come things I value even more: experience, perspective, autonomy.
I don’t move as fast anymore. But I stand more firmly in who I am.
I’ve come to believe that waking up each day and choosing how to live is a quiet act of courage. Not just going through the motions, but making conscious choices. What to think. What to feel. How to respond. Choosing to be the author of our lives, not just swept along by circumstance.
That kind of courage isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s just showing up. And staying consistent in who we are.
At a recent training I was assisting, something unexpected happened. Through an exercise we did together, I was told by the trainer that the company draws strength from my presence. That my consistency, my way of being, made them feel more anchored in themselves.
It caught me off guard. I often wonder whether I do enough for the people who matter to me. But maybe presence itself is the gift. Maybe living with intention is more powerful than we realize.
I still feel my father’s presence. In certain phrases I say. In the way I listen. In stories from his old students or friends who still speak of him with warmth. He left, but he didn’t vanish.
So here’s the question I’ve been sitting with:
What will remain of you, after you’re no longer physically here?
𝗣.𝗦. That’s Hunter, the resident cat at KK Wetlands. He helped co-facilitate the training.