Accidental Obituary

I can't help but think of the young writer who died a few days ago.
He is survived by his wife and young son. He won't be able to
remember the day his father died. He'll grow to know him through
his writing, through his mother. His father will always be a ghost
roaming through his life, untethered from this world. Young Writer
was only a year older than me when he passed. After some time
passes he will always be younger than me. I found out about him
a few nights ago from a friend who works with his child. She was
heart broken, not just for the Young Writer and his wife, but for his
child, denied filial love, a familiarity that was his birthright. I held
her as she cried because there was nothing I could do to lessen
her pain. Language fails in every way at those moments.Words only
nick the surface of our inner lives, the emotions that sweep over us
like vast symphonies of the heart and mind, unable to be transposed
from one person to another. I feel weak and mute at those times.
What can any of us do but listen? A shared embrace means many
things. It can convey the joy of familiarity, the depth of sorrow
that escapes all light, the banal encounters that we take for granted.
Mary Ruefle said, "Here we are, each of us alive and on earth,
each of us the envy of every dead man, woman, and child..."
She is right. It does not matter how young or old we are, we are
the chosen few that bask in warm rays of sunlight, chill at the kiss
of Winter wind. There will come a time when we will be envious
of the living, or perhaps happy to be free of the decaying flesh
we called home. I do not know what comes next. There is none
among us who has absolute certainty about the world beyond this.
I wish Young Writer had not let himself collapse like a dying star,
denied his son the good person he was, denied his wife the mate
she was certain she would grow old and further in love with.
It is Christmas Day and I count my blessings every day. My life
is riddled with faults of my own making and of my time, but there
is a joy and fortune I cannot deny. I hope Young Writer has been
eased of his burden, though, I cannot help but wonder if he can see
the world as it has become.