Collateral Beauty

DEATH

 "An enlightened man had but one duty - to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led." 

― Herman Hesse, Demian. 

Death. 

It's a mysterious looming shadow that follows you everywhere you go yet you forget it's there. It lurks, waiting for it's destined time to appear. It finishes it's job quickly and leaves with the soft swish of a final breath. 

Death 

Death is inevitable. It has a new victim everyday. Someone. Somewhere. But death also has other ways of making itself known. 

It reaches out to you and creeps into the crevices of your mind with it's scrawny silk like hands so seamlessly. You don't realize it's consumed and changed you. Only when it retracts it's hands, after it's completed it's task, do you sense it's empty presence. It's changed you completely, reinvented you, so much so that the person you once knew,  is a stranger. 

I'd say that I've encountered death at lest three times in my life. 

The first time was in elementary school. 

Nerd. goody-too shoes, four eyes. I was bullied for everything and at that time I was emotional, optimistic and too naive to fight back. I endured the pain. 

Death watched and he came to help. With his hands, he crept inside of me and demolished the weakness to establish a new, stronger person. 

Death. 

Just like love and time, I have no idea whether he was my friend or my enemy. Sometimes, he'd help you build a better person and at others he'd take the ones you love. 

The next time I encountered death, he had crept up to my grandfather while he slept. 

Death took his last breath and with it, the pains of the diseases he was suffering from. Death took my grandfather to a place far away in the depths of his dark cloak and his soul was taken away, where his loved ones couldn't reach. 

Death. 

He leaves you feeling empty but in that emptiness he helps you find strength. In the darkness, he leads you to the light. He reminds you of his presence and helps you realize the value of your time as a human. He defines our life and humanity. 

Death is mysterious but he's not our enemy. 

He's our friend. 

A blessing disguised by darkness and pain.