Life will always be dwarfed by death. In fact, life arises, frail and brief, with all its attendant joys and sorrows, from death. Perhaps one could say that emptiness is the great mother, giving forth life, silently nurturing, without bias, all who thrive within her compassionate embrace. And it is within this silence, this most intimate silence at the core of being, or not being, whatever the case may be, that our relationship with our mother, our true relationship, is so deeply personal as to be hidden, and so remains wordless and ineffable, yet still so very present, transcending time and place. It is through this that the darkness is illuminated, through this that the unseen light of knowing, without hope or fear, shines forth, in a subtle, most often unwitnessed, glow; an unseen luminescence which is as inherent and steady in death as it is in life; both giver and given, mother and son, or sister, husband, friend, yet, in all cases, provider, nurturer, caregiver; the one light overcoming all darkness; the very light, in fact, which brings forth that darkness; that one light which provides comfort even in death. And so, embracing and embraced, there can be no parting, no need for farewell, but rather a pregnant silence by way of gratitude, and a sauntering forth bathed in her gentle knowing.