Dayfly

Mayfly or also called ephemera or dayfly is an insect that literally only lives for a day after its hatching. They actually don't have any functional mouthparts of digestive systems, making them incapable of feeding. So basically, their bodies are just filled with air. 

I first got to know about them through a childhood show called, Larva, where 2 caterpillars live in a house and go on adventures. In a special episode, a mayfly hatched  and one of the caterpillars fell in love with the mayfly. After spending time with the love of his life, the caterpillar woke up the next day and found the mayfly dead. Watching this at the age of 7, I wondered why the mayfly ever even lived if they were going to be alive for only at most a day. But obviously I forgot about it. After reading The Death of the Moth by Virginia Woolf, I thought about the mayfly again and I think I kind of get the gist of why fragile and fleeting life is still worth so much.

Yesterday, I rewatched the Mayfly episode and I realized that when I first watched it, the only thing that really caught my attention was the Mayfly's death, because obviously its traumatic, but after rewatching it, I realized, even if it was just for a day, they both had the best time of their lives together. Who am I to decide if their life was worth it or not? If death is inevitable for everyone, might as well just enjoy it, right? The mayfly didn't give up and just spend the day in despair, she got up and enjoyed her life. Maybe that's the way we should approach death. We should live life with joy that we are still alive and have the chance to be happy instead of living in fear of dying one day.