Dots

Endings

There's something sombre but beautiful about endings.

The end of your favorite song as the last chord strikes and fades into your memory. The end of the day when sleep lulls you into your subconscious. The end of your life when you look back on the story you lived.

At least that's what I thought as I stared at the glow of sunrise. I could physically feel my breaths getting shallower and my heart beating slower as I progressively lost consciousness but I refused to die now. Before I died, I wanted to see one last glorious sunset. I wanted to feel the warmth of its early rays embracing me and I wanted my lungs to fill with the fresh, dewy air that came after the severe storms over the past few days. The same storms that had washed my little fishing boat to sea. The tempest that had tossed me into the raging indigo seas, nearly drowning me before washing me up onto the shore of a small island.
It's funny, I had felt death clawing at me for days now and fought it with all my might. I didn't want to die. I had so much more to live for and I had so much more to give. But fighting death is a losing game when you're a washed up fisherman, lost to the sea with no one who cares about you waiting for you to come home. Under those circumstances, death seems like an act of mercy but it is not when your suffering is prolonged. Death may be mercy but the painful process of dying is something that everyone comes to fear.

But strangely, it's dying that teaches you the most about living and the life you've lived. In those last moments, I recalled a memory I'd long since buried; a poem that my mother used to love reciting. How fitting in was for that to be my last thought as I wasted away:

I sit upon the empty shores
As the clocks begin to stutter
The shades of blue from sea and sky
The sand as soft as butter

I sink into a dreamy haze
As clouds begin to appear
The gentle lapping of the waves
The winds that led me here

I smell the fresh air
As my lungs feed my heart
The rising sun embracing me
This is the ending at the start

I sit and truly wonder
how I could've missed it all before
The tragic beauty; the gift of living
Revealed by dying on the shore