What to do with the cacophony of emotions that come about when someone you love is nearing the end of their life? It doesn’t seem to matter to my heart that this person I love has had a long and wonderfully rich life, filled to the brim with experiences, of which I was able to share some of. It doesn’t matter that this person I love lives hundreds of miles away and the last time I saw them was three or four years ago. The doesn’t matters don’t matter, my heart feels raw and the inner depths of me feel like it’s going to implode on itself with the rest of me to follow into the smallest black hole abyss on the inside that I didn’t realize had the power to suck me under and in.

Maybe the impending death of a life so richly lived is a reminder to the lack of permanence we all have. Or it is a window to unresolved grief for others that I have lost, or those I am afraid to lose in the future.

It is bittersweet and I navigate a path and tension between one part of me that celebrates a life well lived and another part mourns what this significant loss means to me and all those involved.

I know I will go on. I know all others involved will go on. I know I am better for having loved this person. I know that a legacy has been set into motion that will always live even when they are no longer here.

But right now, before this person dies, I want to voice that I’m going to miss them, and dare say I already do. I want to say I’m sorry their end is near and will come. I want to say that I am with them even though I’m hundreds of miles away. I want to say thank you for all that you have poured into my life. I want to say that I recognize that you encouraged and supported me, and that I am forever grateful for it. I want to say so much more but I can’t because I’m imploding, and this imploding hurts.

I don’t want comments…
I don’t want “I understands”…
I don’t want platitudes…
I don’t want you to tell me later that you read this post…

I’m putting this here for me…

I’m scribbling this out to describe what I’m wrestling with…

I just want to write this moment out for my mind, my peace, my presence and my heart….

as if it will help the implosion go somewhere instead of the inner inside and away with a force that could sweep the rest of me with it.