Pacified

You are sitting in that chair again, staring out the window, when you realize the awful truth: it is gone. That which is the most precious of all has disappeared and can never again be regained. It was too swift it seems, for was it not long ago that you were still in your mother’s womb, awaiting eagerly the day when you might finally open your eyes and see the world? Yes, it was only a short time ago, or so you try to convince yourself. But already your mind has begun to wrap itself around this hideous idea, this wretched thing. Then you wonder, is it truly that bad? Is losing really such a horrible thing, when the sister to it is nothing other than gaining? But to lose something so precious, so absolutely valuable and to not even realize it is gone until it is too late and the thing is far from your grasp…that is perhaps the worst of all. You try to run after it, but soon grow weary and know that you cannot ignore the truth for much longer. It slips through your fingertips as you try to grasp just this one moment, one instant in time; but it is gone. And this is where you sit back down in your cushy rocking chair by the window and begin to rock yourself back and forth, back and forth. You lull yourself into a sort of trance and are gazing out that window yet another time without even realizing it. As you watch the world fly by through the open window a breeze lightly tickles your face, giving you a taste of all that you have missed. You faintly acknowledge that you have grown old and have missed so much in this very short life of yours, that there is still so much that you had once wanted to do. Those dreams fell away from you much too long ago, however, and you no longer feel such a great need to accomplish them. You struggle to stay awake for but a few moments, and then give yourself up and are lifted from your chair, from your body. As you float upward you look down upon your life and are finally able to see instead of all that you have missed all that you have done. You see your family and friends, your first love and first heartbreak, your first child and your first loved one to have died. You see all the little things that seemed to be so trivial at the time: hugs from Mom and Dad, kisses from Grandma, just being able to make that one person smile, no matter how small it was. You see everything from your life and it no longer seems so short, on the contrary quite long and fulfilling. A tiny smile plays on your lips as you fly away from your body and from the life you once knew, which is dimming fast. It fades away into nothing, and you gaze ahead, vaguely wondering what comes next. You are pacified.