Memento

Memento: Remember
Un momento: One moment
Memento mori: Remember that you must die

I wonder why ‘memento’ is so close in spelling to the word ‘moment’. It is so close, that memento is sometimes misspelled as momento.

But I guess, I shouldn’t have wondered. After all, life is made up of a collection of moments, and in one moment, it will cease to exist. And we keep mementos to remind us (and those after us) what happened, who was involved, when.

We all will die. More painfully, those we love may move on before us. Those fleeting moments may be lost to the ether or become seeds in another’s mind.

May we be mindful of how we spend our moments. May we be more present in each moment. Memento Vivere (remember that you must live).