The photos from the poem below were taken by my niece Mary Rose at the Abo-Abo river in Bataan.

I have an appointment with Life.

She stands in the river as my mother,

she is the river, too, her arms rippling streams

and the low-hanging branches of the willow trees.

She calls me to bathe

in the material realm.

A bath in the mud, a bath in a crystal pool,

it is all the same.

She embraces me as Tara,

my most miserable Self

sagging like fruit

on her loving vines.

I have an appointment with Life.

She sends me away from my Motherland

to the land of the Enemy so that I

can be a lotus sprouting from the muck.

She springs forth like Durga, a weapon in each hand,

at every turn on the Path.

I watch the debris float and settle around me,

as I reach for the sun, the mud a shadow

getting smaller behind me as I ascend.

I have an appointment with Life.

She tells me to watch my family

from across her ring of fire,

to witness their sorrows and joys,

to draft a map from their bodies

so that I may withstand the winds overhead.

It is this distance between my family and myself

that makes a great garden of the sea

from which the drowning find the sprawling roots

and hold on for dear Life.

Life braids the roots as Sarasvati, smiling,

as if to say, “See what we have created?”

Apart, far away, that is my duty in this appointment with Life.

To stand beside women and children the way my mother

emulates the Goddess, the river,

the willow tree, the prophet,

her singing voice translating the language of light

into the language of sound: all nourishment,

the cool shade and the cool water,

the delicate light of the sun

glittering the sound waves.

She lives in my fingers as Laxmi,

my hands waving in the blue-black sky, beacons

attracting the wild wanderers in the sobbing night.

— July 8, 2026

I honor my mother and bow at the seat of her altar for she is a fractal of Life from which I have gained all knowledge. I bow to all bodhisattvas who endure suffering so that we may awaken including my birth mother and my mother-in-law. Om tare tuttare ture svah. Om braam breem broum Budhaya namah. Om Muni Muni Mahamuni Shakyamuniye svah.

Snippets of the Cavern House Temple altar and some of our plants in the early summer morning.

We had a sudden death in our family this weekend. I witness my father’s grief and sorrow as he is shocked with the loss of his closest sibling, his best friend, his youngest brother. I honor my uncle for the kindness he showed in fleeting moments, and the long life he had with our family. My Catholic family struggles deeply with death and the general end-of-life transition. I give thanks to the deaths of my friends and other family because that pain led me closer to the Dharma. I give thanks to the Buddha for transmitting the Dharma so that death is never a true surprise or a confusing event for me. I give thanks for the ability to see beyond the material realm; I know that the spirit goes on, that this life here is a pinprick of light on a multidimensional spectrum that we might call a journey.

In this lifetime my uncle met a bodhisattva and the bodhisattva tested him. My uncle will purify in the realms that mirror what he made here on earth, and then return to some other form of life. My uncle is not separate from my father, from his children or grandchild, or from myself. We are consciousness together, shining and sharing our energies, doing our duties here for a time. May my family’s suffering be comforted by visions of my uncle in the enjoyment heaven and of emptiness beyond, and the sublime joy that comes with it. May our beloved dead visit us and then move on to the next part of their life cycle. May our spirits heal in this realm and the next.

We pray for the monks of Wat Roi Phra Phutthabat Phu Manorom in Mukdahan District, Thailand who were killed in the crash involving an 11-year-old driver. Check with your local Thai Buddhist temple to see how to safely donate to the monks who are recovering from their injuries.