Trying to understand why
a loved one passes so young
Is like questioning the
snowfall as soon as it’s begun
Why does snow cover the Earth
only to melt away?
How can a life be so unique
only to end one day?
When it snows, everything is bright
Landscapes highlighted with strokes of white
Yet an uncomfortable, stinging cold
Makes us wish for sunny days to behold
If you are ever touched by snow
One thing you undoubtedly know
Is that one season ends and another begins
And one day you will see snowfall again
The first snow fell on your last day alive… Like ashes from the fire that rendered your body uninhabitable.
I foolishly wonder, “What is a life?”
“What is the point of a life when it can be taken so unexpectedly?”
After all those years of suffering you endured and caused, how could it all just end -- in more suffering?
Where is the resolution after the climax? Your life story was such a unique one. Didn’t it merit a different ending? One that honored you?
But this isn’t a movie plot. This is real life. All the rest of the characters live on. They don’t cease to exist after 90 minutes.
There is no promise of a hope filled ending. Life, in itself, never ends. Only individual lives do.
Instead of an ending, those that love you spend significant time in bewilderment. We rewrite the plot over and over again, trying to create a different outcome. There are memories, regrets, and mortal questions.
Desperate to find meaning in your life, I consider all the losses you’ve endured yourself: your brother, your father, your fiancee, and finally yourself. How could you become a loss to yourself?
I think about your last days losing the battle with your addiction, one disappointment after another. Those of us who love you wanted nothing more than your happiness and health, but we felt powerless to help you. Despite knowing you could succumb to an overdose at any moment, I took you for granted, just as I do everyone else.
I sit with questions like, “How can a father, son, brother, uncle, and friend simply cease to be? How can a life be so painful and then just END? What is the point?”
Finally I realize that I don’t need to find a purpose in your life that justifies its loss. Your life did not exist so that I could see meaning in it. I don’t have to understand it.
Life is beautiful for the pure fact that it has been. Lives are large, loud, intense, and temporary. Yet we still manage to take them for granted and waste them on petty discourse, hollow activities, and empty material things.
I love you. I miss you. I apologize. I forgive you. May you rest in peace.
