Unending Chain…

I was thinking about something and I wanted to share… I was thinking about life. Not my life and where it is going, but life, living things, in general. It is a simple fact that all living things die. No exceptions. (Well there may be some cnidarians; medsuae and what not, that may be immortal.) All organisms die…
At first that may seem like a depressing statement, but there is a second half to my thoughts. All organisms die, but life itself never ceases. Let me repeat that for dramatic effect: All organisms die, but life never ceases.
“How is this possible?” one might ask…
“Simple” I would reply. Organisms reproduce, that is one of the driving goals of life; to replicate. In order to reproduce the organism either splits itself in two, creating two identical “daughter” cells or it produces specialized cells (gametes) that go off and find other specialized cells that fuse and form a new organism. Those new cells grow up into a new organism that eventually might reproduce and then die and the chain continues.
Take a human for example: a male produces sperm, a female produces eggs. When sperm and egg get together (how that occurs I will leave for you to ask your parents or nearest biology teacher – which may in fact be me) they fuse and form a single cell. That cell, called a zygote, will begin to divide into more cells and will grow up into a new human.
So what is my point?
Every living thing on earth today can trace its ancestry through a never ending sequence of non-dying cells to the original living thing. All of us. You and I are descended from the same “organism” ( more likely a group organisms that shared genetic information easily in a “pool” – but we can discuss the finer points of the cenancestor theory later). There are no gaps. Each subsequent organism produced some form of offspring that made more offspring that made more offspring &c, &c, &c.
Of course over time the diversity of life forms increased as life branched and evolved, but the chain of cells remained unbroken…
It makes me feel pretty special, that I am one of the lucky ones to be a part of that chain.