by Art Redwood

Created on: June 10, 2008

Oh you great equalizer, how can you only take the person, yet leave the memories still behind. Sometimes I wish that those could be taken too.

It is hard when you suffer the physical lose, but it is even harder, when the memories bubble to the surface of your remembrance, when you do or say something that the other person once shared with you in those quiet times, and you remember. that quiet little kiss, or the smell of the pastries cooking in the kitchen or the loving hand of one who was older and wiser, that the behemoths of parents that fate and destiny had cursed you with.

One's who could understand and relate to what you where going through, and how those problems seems so easily solved in that safe place with patience, love, guidance and a hearty pot of tea at the ready. Even today I still miss the sounding board, and the stories, you know the ones. Those that you head a hundred time before, and would give anything in this world to hear just one more time, as you can never retell them just the right way, of times and places, that existed long before you can along, of people long now dead and parents that themselves where young once and not so invincible, and infallible, and constantly in trouble for being young and carefree.

It is savage the loss that you feel when you have only just talked to a person you cherish, and the next they are taken from you, just as intense is the vacuum that never seems to fill as you lament those harsh or short words, that you spoke to them just before the end as even thought you know their time is short, you never feel that they will leave until you've had your chance to make amends for those past stupid indiscretions on your part, or those silly silly words spoken to them that where out of turn and out of character, but that everything will be made good just before the end so that you can say a proper, honest, thoughtful and loving good buy.

Alas that time often never comes, the great equalizer habitually steals that chance, and you are left to deal with the memories of those last thoughts or words that was spoken to them, with no chance of restitution.

Yes for a world that has co-existed with death since the first one breathed their last, we still have not comes to terms with the loss of a loved one, sometimes people are resigned to the inevitable, and sometimes people struggle with the loss, and never fully recover for it, but for all our philosophies on the subject, it is still never easy to say goodbye to a loved one for that final time.

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