Another holiday passes by without my mom and Wayne, and it's left me with some thoughts about loss...
To those who have lost loved ones or parents like I have. I would love to tell you it gets easier. That life moves fast, and you before long you'll eventually become numb. I'd love to tell you that if you surround yourself with family and friends that you won't even notice the missing links after time. But I'd be lying.
Holidays seem to move in slow motion. It's a cruel joke that the universe likes to play on us. Time seems to stop just long enough to hurt us in ways we could never imagine.
See, Death has no emotional attachments. Death has no family or friends of his own. The grim reaper is merely a debt collector. Taking names on his list and shattering surrounding lives into tiny broken pieces. Death never turns back to check the wreckage he caused because Death himself is empty, tired and alone.
So as I spend the rest of my life picking up piece after piece of a puzzle that I'll never be able to put back together, Death laughs to himself, as he watches over me. Watching and waiting... Waiting and watching... waiting patiently to take me. Ever so slightly grazing past my shoulder or whispering in my ear. Taunting me. Taunting all of us, as we gaze longingly at photographs and ugly cry in our cars. Death enjoys watching us suffer. He gets off on it.
Well, fuck that.
I will no longer indulge in such suffrage. I will no longer give him the pleasure of grinning over shattered puzzle pieces. I will celebrate him instead. I will cherish the time I had with my mother and think of her memory only in harmonious ways. I will no longer be a slave to death and his list of names. I will no longer hold a grudge towards Death, because the truth is... that's exactly what he wants. He wants us to be angry. He feeds off it. The irony is, death feels so much more alive when he's held accountable for his actions. He loves the attention. He wants to remain constant in our minds because without it, without your anger and fear he is powerless. I no longer fear death. When he comes for me, I will greet him like an old friend... Because he is only one that will lead me back to my family's embrace.
I don't have religion or faith of any kind really. All I have is the knowledge that, one day death will come for me, like he has come for so many before me. And He's the only one that knows the way home.
I know the holidays hurt a little more than regular days, but don't give in the pleasures of sulking. Instead, smile big when you think of the ones that have passed before you. Laugh loudly as if they are still right beside you in those moments. Because pieces of them still are. Carry those pieces with you, and live a life that would make them proud.
