As we grow, it becomes difficult to just believe. It's not that we don't wan to, but too much has happened and we can't.

-Sometimes this is the word that keep us hanging-

When all hope is gone is when we come face to face with Reality. Until then, we bargain with our God, our family, and with ourselves, hoping that we can wiggle out of this one as we have squirmed out in the past. But this time, no one comes to our rescue, and what we have been running from our entire lives now catches up with us.

After the fear and panic subsides, as it will, certain peacefulness comes over us. We find ourselves accepting the fact that our lives will never be the same, and find the courage to go on. There is a confidence that follows this type of experience - the most horrible happened; it doesn't get any worse than this, and we have come out on the other side. And now we know that the actuality of any situation never quite lives up to the fear of it, and we know that we are stronger for it to a certain extend.

In reflection, perhaps not right away but down the road, we might even see our experience as something that changed our entire life, and perspective. These things have a way of shocking us out of our dream worlds and grounding us, so that everything now is stunning in its naked reality. And when things become real, we learn to live life moment to moment, no longer foolishly counting on the next moment for our happiness as we have in the past; now we are present, fully, and grateful for what we have, and what we are right now.

Every loss, including our lives and the lives of our loved ones opens doors. This is the way it is and has always been. There are no endings, only openings, and openings can be light years from what was before. Each opening can be an adventure, where we will see and understand things that we cannot even imagine; things that are beyond our normal senses and logic, so amazing that we could never figure them out ahead of time.

While we still have hope, we secure ourselves to familiar doors, and no new doors are opened. When all hope is gone, however, this is when we learn how to open new doors, and the lesson is letting go, of our opinions of what we are and where we are going. As long as we think that we know what doors are there for us to go through, or where we will end up, be it in a heaven, in the obscurity of nihilism, or the darkest of hells, we lose that quality of wonderment, that unknowingness that a child understands, and why a child, in its innocence, is so close to truth.

May we have the courage to say, "I don't know." Three simple words that don't reflect hope, or faith, or belief, but reflect something much more profound, they reflect truth, and they open doors.

They open gateways to Now.

"You can never find the Now, if you never experience"

Quoted Jesmen Tan, 2010