What is a life?  I thought about this when I read the other day of the death of Ashraf Pahlavi, the twin sister of the late Shah of Iran.  She was 96.  Accustomed to wealth and privilege, Pahlavi lived a long life, much longer than her twin brother, who died of cancer at the age of 61.  Despite withering international criticism of her brother's actions during his reign, continued to defend him until the day she died.
     Now, however, her wealth and apologetics for her brother are gone, washed away in the steadfast tides of history and time.  Granted, Pahlavi did not ask to be born into the family into which she entered the world; she did not request that she be born as the twin brother of one of the most notorious leaders of the twentieth century; and she could not know, before her birth, the type of life she would live.
     But live her life she did.  And it was an opulent one, many decades of grandeur and political access which few other people will ever experience.  In truth, though Pahlavi's life was more visible than most and her passing will therefore make more of a mark upon the etch book of human endeavor, in the end, set against the specter of eternity, it is as insignificant as any other.
     So are we all.  We are so limited, so brief, wisps and breezes gone as soon as we feel them.  Depressing?  It can be.  Wonderful?  It can be that, too.  Meaningful?  It is that, too.
     Only, however, as even the most ardent unbelievers among us will readily admit, and as Pahlavi has surely by now seen, if there is a God.  Beyond this, there may well be purpose, but what is a purpose in a meaningless universe?