#240

Hello. I have completed War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy. More on that someday.

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One of my oldest and most precious friends, an individual that stood out in my life like a torch in the darkness of the cave, is dead. Got the news a few days ago, no details, and have been reflecting on how I do not prize my friends enough. Involved deeply in our own relatively solitary lives, we had not spoken in over a year. I missed them, I thought of them, and now missing them and thinking of them is all I have. So it goes.

A former coworker is also dead; a sweet and caring person. Also no details. Neither of these people was past the age of thirty, not that it matters. I know some people, like my little sister, that lived for only a few seconds, or ten years, or twenty. We cannot understand these relative measures of time and value; we cannot inscribe worth on a hundred years over a day, but we tend to, it is our reflex, and we cannot help it. 

Really, there is no point, no saving grace at all, in details. My hunger for a narrative, for some sense, is an animal thing, unhelpful and blind. There is no sense to be described, mined, discovered, or applied. Just the main fact, which is the only sense there is.

God rest them both. What more can be said? What more could be asked for? We grieve, we pray our tears a blessing, a washing, a remembrance, and we live. We do not want to outlive our family or our friends. We do anyway.

So we live. 

--JL