Alzheimer's Disease Center
University of California, Davis
The Family Connection
Summer 1998
Silent Meditations
Strange is our situation here upon earth
Each of us comes for a visit, not knowing why,
yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose.
From the standpoint of daily life, however,
there is one thing we do know:
That people are here for the sake of other people?
Above all, for those upon whose smile and well being
our own happiness depends,
And also for the countless unknown souls with whose
fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy.
Many times a day I realize how much my own
outer and inner life is built on the labor of other people,
both living and dead.
And how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give
in return as much as I have received
And I am still receiving.
--Albert Einstein