It never seems real when someone you know dies. When the news is delivered, you find yourself asking What? What? What? as though you've heard the messenger wrong. The disbelief overrules any faith you had in your ability to listen.
No matter how you turn the idea over in your head, you cannot make it sink in. It doesn't seem possible. You feel like you are dreaming and that any moment, you'll awake. Relieved.
You walk outside to get the mail and wonder how it is that the sun can still be in the sky, the breeze still exhaling through the trees. How is it possible when nothing is the same anymore? There should be less light. One less laugh in the world should dim all the brightest stars. The entire earth should react to the loss.
It is strange that anything—anything at all—can continue on its normal trajectory.
Maybe there should be comfort in the fact that we keep turning the same orbit even when change and pain befall us. But it just doesn't feel right. It feels like all should go dark and silent. At least for some time.
Life is a precious gift that can be far shorter than ever deserved or thought. Squeeze your loved ones tight every day. Feel that breeze and the warmth of that sun. Soak up every second of it and spread your love over people like honey.
