Re-post of “When I die”

October 10th, 2014 § 46 comments

IMG_3323When I die don’t think you’ve lost me.

I’ll be right there with you, living on in the memories we have made.

 

When I die don’t say I “fought a battle.” Or “lost a battle.” Or “succumbed.”

Don’t make it sound like I didn’t try hard enough, or have the right attitude, or that I simply gave up.

 

When I die don’t say I “passed.”

That sounds like I walked by you in the corridor at school.

 

When I die tell the world what happened.

Plain and simple.

No euphemisms, no flowery language, no metaphors.

 

Instead, remember me and let my words live on.

Tell stories of something good I did.

Give my children a kind word. Let them know what they meant to me. That I would have stayed forever if I could.

 

Don’t try to comfort my children by telling them I’m an angel watching over them from heaven or that I’m in a better place:

There is no better place to me than being here with them.

They have learned about grief and they will learn more.

That is part of it all.

 

When I die someday just tell the truth:

I lived, I died.

The end.

A bookmarked life

May 13th, 2011 § 9 comments

One of the defining features of childhood is innocence.
As children we don’t realize that things change. We think the way that things are when we go to bed at night is the way they will be in the morning. We put the bookmark in our lives and expect everything to be the same when we return to it.

Of course, as we grow we realize that’s not true.
That it can’t be true.
That’s not how things happen.
That’s not the way the world works.

And what do we say when someone still believes it? We say he is being childish.

Oftentimes I wish I could retreat to childhood. Not because of how my childhood was, but because I want to recapture that mindset, the one that says that everything is going to be alright. When people tell me “everything is going to be fine” I snort. I recoil. I don’t believe them.

It’s not always going to be alright.
Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t.
But the road you must take to figure it out might break you before you ever find out for sure.

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