Life ... it transcends everything

January is Celebrate Life Month.

Life for life's sake is something rarely considered. The idea that life has intrinsic value - not because it is happy or sad, wasted or treasured, innocent or jaded, healthy or precarious - may get little conscious attention, but has transformative power.

Coeur d'Alene resident Mildred Boeker turns 102 today. Life can't be easy at her age, with loved ones gone before and body increasingly traitorous. Society's relatively young stay busy and I'm told part of aging is an encroaching feeling that everyone and everything else is speeding by at a pace which exceeds our best capabilities. That leaves people at Mildred's stage of life introspective. And by 102, undoubtedly strong.

Life itself knows no time. Living occurs not in past or future, but right now. Rarely does the typically overstressed and overhurried modern human actually experience the simplicity of life for its own sake.

Mildred has been quite active most of her life. Even as recently as a couple of years ago she was still knitting for charity. She plays the piano and loves to lead people in merry song. I know she knows how to see the timelessness of life.

I know a kid in her 80s. Her heart is more demanding of late, but she walks her dog nearly every day, talks to her friends, and reads the morning paper. Somehow, she still cooks for as many who come to dine. She loves to feed the "toy-tuls" in the pond behind her home. Her life story is replete with ups and downs, but her eyes ceaselessly smile.

With the possible exception of the Dalai Lama, I've met no one who lives life for life's sake better than she. My mother-in-law lives now. Not before, not later, but now.

Life's intrinsic value is its freedom from judgment, from fear, from desire and regret. It is neither old nor young, bad nor good, and never is it a waste.

Time is a human concept which life transcends.

Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network who wishes Mildred and Gretchen very happy January birthdays. E-mail sholehjo@hotmail.com