My introduction to death was early and often, but my appreciation for it was non-existent. 

Death takes you out at your knees. It forces you down to absorb its impact.

When they talk about the old mobsters giving cinderblock shoes: that’s how I felt grief.  Enveloping me from the bottom up. 

A tag team, a duo, a sure fire way to crush you and your spirit like a coke can if you let it.  

It’s like the vibrancy of everything around you just gets… turned down.  

But the world never stops turning. 

You crawl 

inch

by

inch

With its spin on its axis  

A flattened coke can trying to resume it’s form working against molasses  And then it clicks:

Even in our absolute worst depths of heartache and loss… life goes on

there is no life without death
there is no light without dark 
there is no beginnings without ends

To truly understand what a gift life is, is to appreciate that it comes at the price of death. There will never be new without ending and releasing old. There will never be room for growth of new life without space being made at a cost. Nothing is free.

The wheel simply cannot keep spinning without movement, without momentum, without change, 

Without loss. 

Why is it so hard to just appreciate the time you did have and release it when it’s time to keep spinning forward? Why do we insist on trying to walk upstream holding on to something that isn’t there just to be dragged against the rocks all the way back to where we are meant to be?

I’m sorry I doubted you. I know what it feels like to be the one to do the hard thing. I also know that it’s still necessary even when we don’t want to do it. 

I know how much beauty grows from the room we make. 

I am not sure I’ll ever be excited to see you, but I welcome your conclusion to bring the new in. 

I appreciate you.

See, now was that so hard?