Wish you could be here / to talk about it like it was so important. / Wish you could. /
Eventually you find that you've been to more funerals than weddings. You know the rituals and how they differ, and indeed how much they are the same.
You've been the person who made sure there was an endless supply of hot, dark, bitter Hong Wing coffee at the wake and you've been the person stammering out the eulogy and you've been the person on the other side of a screen watching as three handfuls of dirt are thrown into a grave thousands of miles away and you will be each of those people again.
Because you were the kind of young person who thought a lot about death, because you were the kind of person whose friends died young over and over again, because you've poured the coffee and paid your respects, because you've gripped the hands of the grieving and been the one bereaved, because you've winced at the typos in the printed materials and appreciated the photo selections in the memorials, because there is no outliving life.
Every wedding brings with it a reminder of the hopefulness of love, every funeral brings with it a lesson in the endurance of love.
Ashes, dust.
Love.
Attribution:
Know you have a long way to travel.
Know I don’t even know if it’s long
at all. Wish you could tell me. What
you’re reading. If you’re reading.
Miss you.
— from Miss you. Would like to grab that chilled tofu we love. by Gabrielle Calvocoressi