One more scene near the end of the movie Phenomenon (see previous entry) is a wonderful metaphor for what the right attitude should be about people that come and go in our lives.
George, played by John Travolta, tries to explain to the young boy that he should not be too upset about his impending “departure”:
If we were to put this apple down and leave it, it would be spoiled and gone within a few days. But if we were to take a bite of it, like this, it would become part of us. We take it with us, forever.
Everything is on its way to somewhere. Everything.
(Is this part of what the Christian mystics call detachment?)