Death

And pain, and sadness, and hunger, and abuse.

They all make me so upset.

When directly confronted with any of them, I start to wonder what the point is of life at all. Eventually everyone is going to die. Everything is going to pass away. All the wonderful, beautiful things you remember...will anyone else remember them? Even memory passes away.

My uncle Lee, the husband of Mom's sister Carol, died on June 1. He was only 51 years old. He had a stroke or something, randomly, out in the yard prepping his truck for a trip. Uncle Lee drove tractor trailers, and every time I'm on the road and I see one I think of him. Now every time I see one I think of how he died there back behind his truck, no reason, just fell over dead.

Today my mom told me that my dog has a lump in her mouth that may be cancerous.

My mom told Connor once that dogs don't live for a long time, and that someday they won't be around anymore. Connor said, "But people live forever!"

Someday someone close to him is going to die.

We're all going to die, someday. But the fact that it happens to all of us is hardly comforting, especially if you don't believe in an afterlife.

If this is all we've got, why is it like this?

The answer, of course, is that there is no reason for any of it.

I know why people want to believe in heaven. I wish I believed in it. I wish death wasn't the end. I wish we all went on, and we could all be with each other again.