As the end comes.

Today we learned of the death of a loved one who lived far away but was not far from out hearts. True, she had lived a relatively long life, and left as as another example to what ends habits like smoking will cause, but still the faint tinge of pain reaps at my soul at the thought of her passing. One must reach out to her husband, a decades-old meeting of two minds and spirits, for no deeper pain can be felt at the knowledge that you shall never again touch the hand of the one you love (in this existence anyway). One must seek out those who pain greatly at such loss, for death does not effect the dead as much as it effects the living.

But such lessons can be learned by the living, those of us who can take such moments for granted and waste them with the pitiful arguments spawned not of love but of the folly of fools. What moments did those two waste with irrelevant spawnings of the temporary suffering self-inflicted by anger, jealousy, or other emotions known to ego? What would they give to have those moments back to share in the love they felt at their final moments of passing?

I am sure the price would be high, just as I am sure they would pay it.

So do us living fools dare take this lesson to heart that shed our selves prone to such waste? Most likely not, as we feel the need to live in such disharmony from time to time. Storms, it can be said, are necessary to clear the air, to wet ground left fertile but dry, to unseal such a surface hardened with time. After such storms, life can spring anew, time can be restarted with the crisp and tortured sound of Thor’s hammer as it springs to life even the most deaf of souls. Nothing, it is said, can dare sleep during such storms.

It would seem to be in our best interest to seek the limit to these storms, for as some things may benefit from their birth, they surely can leave destruction in their wake. The floods of pain and agony can leave many a soul buried under mud so deep that only darkness can survive. The winds of suffering can howl greatly in the ears of the passionate, causing the heartiest among us to snap and splinter in the midst of it all. Yes, some may see life anew once the storm clouds clear, but others may see destruction so great as to never recover.

As the end comes, and we are drawing our last breaths, it seems implausible to believe we will see value in the storms. Nay, we will cling ever so desperately to the last vestiges of sunshine and wish the storm clouds away. We will bargain for the time wasted seeking shelter in the storm, and we will beg for the second chance to live in such harmony as to never need those clouds. We will grasp for the ones we love, pray for those we cannot reach, hope that they remember not the storm but the blue skies. We will wish the storms away, and we will have wasted time better spent in love than in anger.

Remember then dear souls, that when you wish away your love in favor of the darkening clouds above, that this may be your most brutal mistake. It shall not be your last wish, but it will be the wish you cannot change at any price, yet the one you will most desperately seek to change. Touch the one you love this moment, and never let go of the sunshine. Speak but true words of love to those you cherish, never let them forgo the chance to hear such promises. Allow your heart to open, and reach out to those who share so much with you in the time you have this moment.

This moment – it is all you are sure to have, it is all you will ever know. Be true to it in love with those who seek it in return and share it with those who do not know they seek such truth. You shall never regret that moment when the chance of rain is replaced by the surety of the sun.