The Temporal Shell

October 2, 2004
11. 07 pm


This momentary existence, the being and the leaving of it. The unpredictability, the smiles, the tears, the friends, and the foes we leave behind one day when immortality and a bigger permanence consumes us. We came, we saw and we leave behind our cherished ones, and some aching hearts maybe, if we’re lucky enough. As fragments etched in some sorry heart’s memories.

“ Nothing in life is as permanent as the leaving of it.”
Ode to Uncle Samuel

I never got the chance to know you all so intimately, and yet I feel the pain of your passing. My sorry mind remembers all the times you constantly had such a gracious smile and hearty laugh to share with all. The kindness in your eyes and the warmth of your heart, it still lingers strongly in my memory. All the Christmases in your home, all the gifts and presents, the fun and laughter we all shared. Most importantly your gentle words of wisdom, your encouraging gestures, my heart weeps for your loved ones, where tears fail.

The pain of loss, the permanence of it, the point of no return. To grow to love someone, and they become a part of you, and one day get ripped away from your life without warning, you stand there stranded, lost, sucked into a vortex of darkness and pain. I can sense the shock in aunt and her crippling suffering. I felt stunned, lost for words, what could I possibly say to ease her pain? What could anyone say?

Demise is immobilizing, let alone when it’s sudden and unprecedented. As I write this, your smile, my mental picture of it, keeps flashing in my mind. I can’t swallow this truth still. How can someone walk out of life this swiftly, it baffles me beyond reason. What urgency could the ones above have to call you to their side in such an intense hurry?

I can’t help but feel for you wife and sons. Their agony, and their hurt, the internal hell that they must be going through. Why are we bestowed with such a curse? The blight of FEELING. Regardless of whether its happiness or sadness, joy or pain! Is emotion a human infliction?

“Why give us a heart and the power to sense emotion? Why?
If in the end you only fill us with distraught and inflictions.
I wander as I wonder, about the value of this mortal life?
Are we but mere puppets in the creator’s eye?
Pulling each string as he deems right.
You were a candle that was snubbed too early,

and robbed of its light!”

I pray for your soul tonight, on this night that I bring a heavy heart to bed, one heaving with much dismay and anguish. God knows, my prayers aren’t frequent, but today I do that for you, for your blessed heart and the sweet memories of your brief yet memorable presence in my life.I thank God for gracing me with your being, in the days that you walked this smaller world of mortals and lesser glories. And I pray that your sweet soul shall be in peace and “Dwell in the house of the LORD forever” and ever!

And hold faith that you will be shining your blessings down upon us from a painless paradise

Truly Disheartened