If I accept the concept of life then I have to accept the concept of death – they go hand in hand, one with the other, one after the other. I think of these things when I notice my son has grown. Change is the constant fluctuation of Yin and Yang, one into the other, back and forth, the balance between the two never static, but always moving.
M-ito said this moring, “I took a shower by myself last night!” He was lying on the bed, his clothes scattered around him, his PJs still on. I sat next to him trying to get him to hurry and get dressed.
“You did,” I replied.
“You didn’t have to take a double shower with me.” He smiled, proud of himself.
I smiled back, proud also. I’d talked him through the shower from outside the stall, reminding him to wash under his arms and behind his ears, laughing with him as he tickled himself.
“Some day,” he said, still smiling but looking a little past me as if he was seeing some future I wasn’t privy to, “I’ll take a double shower too.”
“With your own son or daughter?”
He nodded. “And when you’re a grandpa you can take a double shower again.”
“That’s the way it goes,” I said, “around and round,” Yin and Yang.
Zen Dad-dito 