Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.

Lives are brief, and the brevity is often clearest when someone is suddenly gone. Morning dew is there and then it is not; lightning is vivid and then it is over. Neither image says a life is unimportant, only that it does not last, and that its brightness and its passing belong together.

If you are grieving, this may be less a lesson than a description of what you already know too well. For anyone, it can be a nudge to say the thing you have been saving, or to spend an ordinary hour with someone you love while the morning is still here.