There was a moment when life was just life,
and death was a stranger I knew nothing about.
There was a fragment when weekends were just weekends,
filled with friends and movies and dinner parties and couples hanging out together.
There was a glimpse when laughter was just laughter,
and not laughter poisoned with pain and loss.
There was a measure when I was planning the wedding for me and my husband,
and not planning my husband’s funeral.
Death was something far away and distant and not real,
something that happened to people on t.v. shows,
or in movies.
Other people.
Not me.
Not us.
There was a minute when everything was right,
and then there was a second,
when it wasn’t right anymore,
suddenly,
instantly,
forcefully,
at 6:32 in the morning,
on a Wednesday,
when a phone rang and rang and rang,
waiting for me to answer the call that said:
“Pack your bags.
Your love is gone,
and you are no longer you.”
I’m sorry I don’t have anything more uplifting to say tonight. I really am sorry. But sometimes, I just don’t. Sometimes, this is all I’ve got. All I’ve got is my longing and my begging for the yesterdays and the times when I didn’t know anything at all or care about posts such as this one. I look to the sky and I look to the air, and I wonder inside and I miss all the things that never were, and all the things that never will be. But that sky is different to me now, than the sky I knew, before I knew death. I see it’s darkness. I see it’s light. I see it all. Now.
There will never be a time,
like the time I lived in,
before I knew too much,
about life,
to know
that it’s not
just Life.
It is nothing. And everything.
It is the only thing that we have,
for sure.
The only thing that is right now.
I wish I didn’t know
so much
about death.
But I do.
I do.
And because I do,
I try to always
Inhale
Life.