Life will go on without you. That's what life shared as I woke up slowly, a familiar knot forming in my stomach, residual dreams drying in my skull, and I knew it was true. After all, how could life tell a lie, if you listen? But it was not a threat, 'cause life doesn't roll like that. It was just a statement of fact, pure, simple, and true. And isn't truth a kindness?

 

Life will go on without you. There are signs every way, no matter the direction. Like a beaten wife who outlives her alcohol-ridden husband as his heart fails him in her presence one last time, like blades of grass springing from a crack in the pavement after their counterparts have fallen for good, like fish with two heads will own the lakes and deer with poison blood will walk the land after the soil has been sucked for the plastic motions of people, like your family who still will fry eggs and drink coffee if you stop waking up some day.

 

So take no comfort in tales of absolute death, all-ceasing breath, zombies, or a planet up in flames. Do not sit back and find comfort there in your presumed lack of potential. It is profoundly arrogant, and only makes it harder for you to garner any real substance or further your understanding of life's power or purpose. Clovers and gnarly blades of grass and other greenery will cover over your once-thinking brain all the faster if you think thoughts with such a sour tenor. Know that life hears your mind and never stops translating your personal transmissions to her core language. So if you hide some excitement over the possibility of her mortality, or your own longevity begins to feel like power over her, or worse yet, you harbour a feeling of resentful defiance at the thought of life remarrying once you have passed, just know that your weakness is always noted.

 

That said, life will never ignore your strength of character either. She will lift your face from off her chest as your body, racked with sobs, trembles in her firm grasp of who you are and where you came from. And she will kiss you like the child that you are if you find it in your heart to lose a little face, kill a little fear, and love her. Real love is respect, after all.

 

If you truly care for life you will never try and steal from her, either. Chances are, if you care for her, she will have taught you enough that you realize that attempting such a thing is like trying to draw your own blood and pull your own teeth, and cut your own hair, and suck your own moisture out to sell to a factory that will then turn it into gold. Whether the factory succeeds while you are still living or after you have already died, that gold will never have any practical use for your joy or continuance. Once you understand that nothing belongs to you and that you can't choose things to take and keep once life has moved on without you, you will walk lighter, laugh and cry harder, and love more deeply than you thought possible before, when you wanted to keep life, and make her do tricks for you.

 

Life is your mother, your lover, your friend, and will go on without you, so you should wish her the best and curb your crooked craving for competition with her achievements, your asinine attachment to ambitions that you think will make you happier in your next life then you are now. Because the only gift life can offer you from her humble stock of treasures is the moment. Accept the rare beauty of this common gift or you shun her hospitality. Celebrate the rare beauty of everyday breathing, because life will go on without you. Let this truth power you, and reject straight-line apocalypse narratives that call themselves inevitable.They crush your future children with every step if you allow them to walk you to sleep.