death grip

It is amazing how death clarifies. Whether you're head-first down the throat of a boa constrictor, or someone you love is facing death, things become crystal clear very quickly. The act of living. Faith. Life after death. Relationships. Love. Not just "love", but a clearer understanding of love as it was intended to be - not for what was done or not done, said or not said - but just love.

My mind has been sharpened by this clarity over the past few days. The reality of never seeing someone again, of where I want to end off, of what I really think and feel when it gets down to it. Where all the insignificant crap falls away like dirty snow kicked off a wheel well. What matters is what I can do now. To: Live. Be alive. Show love.

The clarity is as grieving as it is purging. The heart part of me mourns, not what is passed, but what was missed. The mind part of me is energized to lay aside the unnecessary, what is behind, and think about just Today.

I keep thinking how life - complicated, hectic, stressful, frustrating - can instantly boil down to one thing in the face of death. One person. One relationship. And how you instantly know what's right. You may not know what to say, or do, but at your core you instantly know what really matters.

And am I acting on what matters? Do I live a life acting on truth and on love?

"Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done
And on the labor in which I had toiled;
And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind.
There was no profit under the sun."