At my Dads funeral, the priest read a poem to us about the dash between the two dates printed on a headstone in a cemetery. All I could think was about how much I disliked poems being read at me on podiums. Anything to just disassociate from what was happening in front of me and most of the people I knew.
This week three friends of mine died. Acquaintances now really from other chapters of my life that I don’t often revisit, in cities I don’t live in anymore. News like that, it has a way of glaringly placing every feeling into the precise present moment. Suddenly it flashes.. every single silver lining and wonderful thing about that person - the feeling they could fill a room with. I can instantly capture the magic of the spirit -it’s brief but powerful like a camera flash. Like a shadow of the flash of the nostalgic electricity of an instant.
Instances that sparkle. Conversations we had ten years ago during a listless packed Saturday dinner rush shift that managed to stick. Like glitter on a cracked sidewalk. Or the way they reacted with incredible joy to life events. Remembering what it was like the day losing my parent or my partner or my mentor. How in an instant everything I thought was important just wasn’t anymore. Coupled with the eerieness that people all around the world, some of them my friends - are having that exact experience day after day. I know what is waiting on the other side once the shock and tasks subside - questions and time.
Time is equal parts the cruelty and salvation of the mystery of life. It’s like every single one of us has everything to lose, we just never know that until it’s lost and we’re looking back at what we had.
The jolt from pitch black to blinding light and back to black in an instant. Always and never, the without deep within.
