Memento Mori

G------ passed yesterday morning. My mom told me when I woke up around 12:00. She said she cried a little, but more is to come. I haven't cried, but I didn't cry until my grandma's funeral service when she passed, and she was one of my best friends. 

Every time I left for college I said goodbye to both of them like I may never see them again. That was a lot of closure back then that I have carried with me.

I've been so close to death also...I don't know...I'm just so fully aware of its reality all the time. I can't ever escape it. I think about death every day....

I try to tell people how much I love them as often as I can. I think people think I'm a little crazy for always saying it, like maybe I dont really mean it because I say it so often, as if they were just words I recited out of habit. But they aren't. Not after what I've been through and am still going through. The words have never meant more to me.....

You never know what could happen. And out of anyone, I truly know that to be true. 

I feel a big cry coming, because of everything going on in life in general, but it hasn't come yet. Not yet.

I find myself staring into nothing in silence a lot more lately. I mean it's something I do anyway, all the time really, but I think a harsh dose of the reality of our mortality and finitude has completely increased it...it's like I can't stop....staring into silence, breathing it in, as if that will somehow make sense of everything.

I havent had a decent nights sleep in over a week. I've been very irritable because of it. The last few posts feel like they were pure emotion. But logically, I know there has to be truth, even just a little, in them as well. At least that's what I keep telling myself. 

The following is a poem by Billy Collins:

Memento Mori

There is no need for me to keep a skull on my desk,

to stand with one foot up on the ruins of Rome,

or wear a locket with a sliver of a saint's bone.

It is enough to realize that every common object

in this sunny little room will outlive me--

the carpet, radio, bookstand and rocker--

Not one of these things will attend my burial,

not even this dented gooseneck lamp

with its steady benediction of light,

though I could put worse things in my mind

than the image of it waddling across the cemetery

like an old servant, dragging the tail of its cord,

the small circle of mourners parting to make room.

I tweeted this last night: 

"Good night. Be thankful you are alive. Breathe it in. Get lost in life. Be in it. Be a part of it. Be it. Just...be. And love it."

G------ I love you. I hope your tribulation ceased as soon as God knew you were remade. I hope you have pure unconditional love and light and joy. Amen (So be it truly)