Member-only story
Just Today, Never Tomorrow
Living is today, dying is tomorrow, but it all ends, it always ends
He was fifty-nine, someone’s dad, a husband who found his forever love late in life. Quiet man, patient, the type of man who had people working for him cry when he died, so many careers flourishing because he was there to give a hand up, to teach, to give a damn if you made it or not.
We all know we all die, but when it comes to the actual dying part we never expect it to be us, or someone we love. He was my father’s age you mutter. So young the ones his age sigh. Why him? Why Now? We were so happy his wife cries, sitting alone in the dark staring at a bed he will never sleep in again, it’s not fair, we haven’t had enough time. Our minds can never prepare for death, unless we are dying, because death is what happens to you, never me.
You get older you see death everywhere. A mudslide in California takes a boy of twelve sleeping his bed. My phone buzzes and my brother tells me my aunt, ninety, had a stroke and they found a tumor when they got her to the hospital, I watch the news and two men in their twenties die in a single car crash fueled by alcohol and testosterone. Death is part of life, but so easy to dismiss since you never knew that kid or the drunks in the car.