Life

Heredity 

I am the family face;
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through time to times anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.
The years-heired feature that can
In curve and voice and eye
Despise the human span
Of durance–that is I;
The eternal thing in man,
That heeds no call to die.


Thomas Hardy

The "eternal thing in man, that heeds no call to die" is the gene. The flowers of our Christmas Amaryllis are dying, but in dying they are creating the seeds that will, perhaps, pass on the plant's genes to the next generation. 

We should all take time to remember that, however inadequate or insignificant we might feel, each of us is a great success story. The genes that make us who we are represent an unbroken history of survival that goes back to the very beginning of life. We are lucky to belong to a time when we know just how wonderful every individual is. If we can just remember that, then perhaps we can learn to respect each other a little better.