Oh, my God - have mercy! Another morning. The endless cycle continues. Poor Aiden‘s dog. Sorry Alyssa‘s cat. David’s great grandmother who was never sick. Gina‘s grandson, just eight days old. A butterfly on a windshield. A baby bird falling from its nest. A baboon killed by a leopard. A lion killed by a poacher. A politician killed by cancer. A crab boiled alive and smashed to be cooked. Luke’s favorite teacher. The community’s oldest preacher. Every last miserable living creature. Check. Check. Check.

I have to tick off every box. Pick the place and time. Show them the movie reel of their life in just a few fleeting seconds. Guide them into the beyond. Out of the darkness and into the light. Yet I remain in shadow. Helping everyone else to die, to be reborn. Yet I can never die. I can never grant myself the grace and reprieve or the solace and enlightenment that I will show countless souls today and every day. For I am the reaper – the gatherer of souls. It is my job to take the precious gift of life and transition it back into the Bardo - the place we’re all souls collect and are ultimately recycled.

Some days I feel like a over-hyped garbage man. Other times I feel like a rare treasure hunter. And some days I just feel like a tax collector, taking from the poor who don’t realize what they have. But the rich must give up their souls as well. For the truth is, as they say, you really “can’t take it with you.” You can’t take your money and you can’t take your soul. That’s my job. And if I’m being honest, so often, I hate what I do. I mean it. I hate what I have to do, but it must be done.

Think of the new baby to be born. The one who is going to live a full life with so many achievements and experiences and so many lives that he will touch. Without the soul, he needs to fulfill his destiny, he can be nothing. So I take from one and give to another. And like waves in the ocean, that ceaseless churning and rolling over of each ebb and flow - that tide - is the design of life and death, and the progression of the human soul and the spirit in all living things.

So when you have to put your favorite pet to sleep or have to say goodbye to an old friend, remember: soon they will be reborn again, and a piece of them will always live on in the universe. When you see the light flicker behind someone’s eyes where there is wisdom and kindness, that is the truth of death’s gift. That is sometimes the only thing that keeps me getting up each and every morning to do this thankless job. It’s certainly not the benefits package or paid vacation! My work is never really done. Check. Check. Check.