I cried. No shame in saying it - I cried a lot. But I laughed a lot too. And hugged whoever was around me, as I read it. And strangely, even as I smiled, I often found my eyes moist, and a lump which I couldn't swallow.
Love in the time of Death.
The inevitability never lessens the pain. And the wonder never ceases, of people who find Zen as night starts to fall. And love, however brief, can still be an 'infinite forever'. And 'some infinities are bigger than other infinities'.
And when you start to see yourself die, and find the world of everyone you love start to revolve around your existence, and you feel guilty for being a 'grenade' which would inevitably explode and fill everyone near you with shrapnel. And you resist falling in love, for you don't want to hurt someone so. But life and death and love still manage to take their own blighted route.
And as grief falls on you like petals afloat in spring, you realize it changes you less than it reveals you. And it makes generosity second nature, even as it reveals how 'pain demands to be felt'.
And you understand that heaven is here, just where you are, as every breath brings you closer to closure: 'an elegant universe in ceaseless motion, teeming with ruined ruins and screaming children'.
And you think, as your life starts to break down - when was my last good kiss, when did I recite a poem, when did I hold a hand, when did I feel the petals of a flower against my cheek. And you realize that, even as you scream and shout through your breathing moments to have the universe notice you, all that mattered really was to notice the universe.
And how you just need to tread lightly on this earth, maybe touch just a few lives, maybe live deeply and not widely, maybe see fewer things but see them with attention, and though 'you don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world', you do get your say in who hurts you. And in that choice you revel, in having loved and being loved.
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