Another kind of death

We are all familiar with physical death– with the pain it brings into our lives and with the anxiety that we too must face this annhilation of being. However, there is another kind of death with which me must deal as well; and that is the death that occurs in the midst of life itself. We all have people who are now dead to us– that person who was our best friend, who brought out the colors in life, who was always with us, and because of this, whose existence we took for granted since we assumed that they would never leave. But things changed. Slowly, but ever so surely, we drifted apart, until we look back today at this person and wonder how they could be the same one whom we loved so in days past.

No. You must be an imposter. What happened to that joyful smile, those adventurous eyes, and that imaginative spirit? How about the warmth and love that used to embody our every encounter?

No. You can’t be that person who was my best friend. For that person is no more. I see your smile in a photo and often long to be back in that moment. But that moment, like every other instant of sweet life is gone and is no more. It all is dead. You is dead. Yet here you are.

So I ask you, what did you do with you? Where did you go? I think it is my fault too, as I took you for granted and let you go so easily. Part of me has died with you. And I never said goodbye, because I didn’t see this happening until it was too late. But there is nothing more to say.

Except that I miss you, my friend. And I will always remember the times we had together, how you shaped me into the person that I am today.  And you taught me a lesson, albeit a lesson that is like fighting against the wind to follow.

We should never take for granted those whom we love. For if we do, sooner or later, things will change and before we know it, they are dead to us while still living. Physically, they are here. But neither they nor us are the same persons. And we will find ourselves stuck in the inbetween– between death and life, the no man’s land of loneliness.

And all we can then say is: I miss you, friend.