I, Too

by Richard Harris
(rickinjaxfl@live.com)

I, too, have witnessed the death of those who loved me as only a family could after my own family cast me away.

I, too, have seen the quick, seemingly peaceful death suicide has brought to some as well as the agonizing, tortuous laboring for the last breath of those who even then cling to the hope that “this is not really happening to me”.

I, too, have grieved over many young friends my own age and felt the guilty joy of one who has been spared—so far.

I, too, will grieve as each one passes and my life and my world lose their sources of companionship, talent, love, and dinner parties one by one.

I, too, will be forever “scarred” by what has become the holocaust of my day with all of its ramification –past, present, and to come.

Yet, I, too, will continue to live, love, and hope while I have breath left to breathe and life left to live.

I, too, will strive for happiness even as each of them die never to be replaced—only forgotten as those who remember them fade from history.

I, too, will work to make my life and my world a better place even as we lose our most valuable assets when these dying are no more.

I, too, will embrace life as I have learned from those who died that this is the place I belong and the purpose I serve—for now.

I, too, will cherish the love we shared and feel gratitude that I have come to know what the words love and life signify in all their shades of meaning.

Will you, too, bury your dead and join me with your memories of joy as well as pain so
we might ease the loneliness and increase the happiness each of us is able to feel?

January 4, 2009