Requiem
I can now count four — four — young losses in my circle. All boys. Men. All sons of people close to me.
It is not lost on me that, if I’d bred, he or she would have turned 20 last month. It’s not that I think about it or celebrate it or rue it. It’s just how I measure time.
To have spent the last +/- 20 years investing everything you have into someone whose demons speak louder than love, I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be them today.
All of these events are unrelated. Only two of the families even know each other, but their kids would never have known of each other.
I don’t know all the methods. Whatever those were, are less relevant than the cause. And those, I do know.
And … I get it.
In a lot of ways, things do get better. But in a lot of other ways, they don’t.
I don’t know what the next life holds. Mom doesn’t believe there’s anything out there. I believe we go back to Source with our memories and the people and pets who were part of them.
I also believe we choose our next life based on what we didn’t get in this one. And that our memories get wiped clean so we can start anew and get the answers we so desperately sought in this life.
Jesse. Bryan. Jacob. Matt. May you find the peace that eluded you here. And may your parents figure out a way to go on in a world that was cruel while you were in it, and unspeakably brutal without you in it.
ETA: Five. Justin.