I heard a song the other day that was new to me — “Life Goes On” by Marc Cohn.
“Without Elvis, without Jesus, life goes on,” Cohn sings. “Without anything it pleases, life goes on.”
I think the song’s point is that our lives come and go, but generally life goes on. The universe continues unmoved. So living is up to us, for what it’s worth.
John Mellencamp said it much more bleakly in “Jack and Diane”: “Life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone.”
I find it a little hard to comprehend the thrill of living being gone forever. We are resilient creatures who can rebuild a shattered life and live and love again.
As long as our hearts are beating and we have breath, there is hope for a better tomorrow. There just is.
