Here today...gone tomorrow.

He approached the form that was a life not so long ago, that now lay still and no longer called out to him. He would never hear the loving call of his son again, the most precious part of his life as he knew it. He was gone. All those times that he had chided him and not reached out to hold him close, just so he could teach him discipline, now seemed so very futile and he desperately craved for just one breathing moment with a child he loved more than life itself.
As he washed the body of a life that had lived barely ten years in this world, he asked himself and his Creator, "Why him? You could have taken me. He was only ten!" As he anointed the boy and prayers were recited, he tried hard to fight back the deluge that emerged from within. Life as he knew it seemed like a wasted effort. What was he living for? Why should he even go on? He slowly rubbed handfuls of earth onto the blessed boy and piled on the logs that caged him. Alas! He wouldn't fight to come out. No, not this time. Unlike every other time he was caged in his room for misbehaving, where he would somehow manage to crawl out of the window and get away. Why can't he find a way out this time? Why won't he just wake up and escape...escape the burning pyre that will cage him forever.
As he set the pyre alight, his heart cried out in desperation and agony. He knew not a pain such as this before and life as he knew it would never be the same again. It was then that he realized how rarely, if ever, he told his son how much he actually loved him. Chiding him and punishing him were regular features but letting him know that he was loved infinitely was something that never materialized. It was always taken for granted. And now he was gone.
The unalterable truth of losing someone we love is that they will never speak to us in the flesh again. We can never hear them again. We will never know them in quite the same way. They will no longer be there to listen, to scold, to love, to protect, to fight with and to just hold your hand. That is a whole being that just ceases to be. What do you do? You talk to the wind...fight with yourself, scold the world and cry when you want to love them. How do you handle losing someone you cherish so deeply? And yet...death as we all know it is the only certainty of life itself. Why then is it so difficult to deal with an absolute certainty when we battle uncertainties every day of our lives? Why is it so incredibly difficult to accept the inevitable?