Vashon Senior Center Luau Celebration lunch, July 14: I don’t know exactly why the celebration, but we had the Vashon Ukulele Society on hand to serenade us through lunch.

Time has not been kind to us. Age disfigures the most beautiful among us. The ultimate insult: Our minds deteriorate. We’ve taken every assault life can give, and our wounds are much deeper than our wrinkles. We seem to be disappearing from the earth a piece at a time.

But the gentle singing of the orchestra, playing “Vashon USA,” “One Paddle, Two Paddle,” “Love Potion Number Nine,” “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” transcends the present and brings clarity and humor to our universe.

For just a moment, “through a glass darkly,” one can glimpse the whole. In the words of Wernher von Braun, “Nothing can disappear without a trace, nature does not know extinction, all it knows is transformation.”

The cocoon is unsightly, but the butterfly is perfect.

— Lawrence Dean