Never more can we see the beauty of raw life than in a new being, just come into the world. Our kitten, Gracie, is all teeth and claws, downy fur and tiny fragile bones. Sitting still has no appeal to her and so, like a human baby, she only submits to being held if you are in constant motion.

She came into our lives after a challenging summer. A summer filled with all the duties and troubles that come with inhabiting the world for nearly a third of a century. With wide pale jade eyes and twitching tiger tail, she burst in to disrupt our lives a little further. But the price of extra cleaning, feeding, and care feels cheap compared to what we get.

Gracie is fond of giving kisses to anyone who will tolerate her rough cat’s tongue. Particularly when you return from wherever you have gone, particularly in the morning. I scoop her light little body up in my arms as I walk around the kitchen making coffee, and she grooms the crook of my elbow until it is thoroughly clean.

Babies, kittens, puppies, remind us of who we were before we grew tired and tired of life. They come into the world full of instinct and hunger, joy and curiosity. Gracie crouches, belly low to the ground, her eyes squinted, her ears almost flat. She leaps! Flying toward the spinning cat toy, she sends herself and it sliding across the floor.

Gracie does not spend much time thinking. She sits on the cat tree in the windowsill and dozes. She sprints through the house, back arched and tail puffed, begging someone to chase her. Often, our Australian Shepherd obliges.

A being so new, like Gracie, gives us hints to the nature of things, as does the other periphery of life—the one we would all rather look away from. I have had the privilege to accompany many people through the stage of life which prepares them to pass through the curtain of death.

Death is a sacred time of life, much like birth, and comes with its own labor pains, so to speak. All that was accumulated in life is slowly being relinquished, leaving us open-handed once more. Not all, but many elders are hungry for the next adventure.

 These transitional points in life tug questions from our hearts: Who am I beyond the roles that I play? Beyond the relationships and attachments I’ve formed? Beyond my ability to execute a task? To walk? To speak? To remember?

With a wiggly, giggly baby it seems obvious, but it is just as clear with the fragile elder, if we have eyes to see. Beyond what I have, what I do, what I think—beyond all these things which arrive and then pass away—there is something which endures. An inherent sweetness, a beauty, a preciousness.

Gracie is growing. She can now make the leap up to our older cat’s food on the counter. Her coos have turned into rumbling purrs. She grows more into her nature everyday, the nature of love.