Death and all of his friends

I've been thinking about death, immoderately these days. I don't know what it is that intrigues me so, but when I'm lying in bed, I tend to think about life and death and all of the people I've known who have passed on and the impact that they have left on this earth. If nothing else, I know that these men and women have left their marks in my heart and my life. And maybe it's enough just to impact one life while you're alive. To spark a light in the dark for someone who's searching and learning and looking for more, for a feeling of unity or love or something like that. Maybe its that every death signifies a passing on of something inside of you as well. It hurts, it burns, its a flame, so coarse and strange that some never fully recover. And, there are some whose touch on the earth, is alone, the very act of dying.

I knew this man, a very young man with a young wife and a little girl who had just moved to the U.S from India; full of life and excitement and the thrill of opportunity and luster in their sails. My family and theirs became as close as any could be, sharing our lives together, praying together, and celebrating each others life and triumphs. We had only known each other for about 6 months, when unexpectedly and most harrowingly, This young man was diagnosed with an advanced case of colon cancer. The world stopped for them, for all of us. (I've never talked about this to any one of my friends. They'd have never understood death or loss, or maybe wouldn't have even cared. It hurts to say that, but I know its true.) But anyways, they were devastated. As were we. They were a young couple, married only for about 7 years. So in love, so beautiful. Their little girl was 6, and full of life, when suddenly, everything turned to black. They were so scared. You should have seen it. It was enough to make anyone sob and sob and sob until no tears remained. Only after 6 months in America, full of optimism and opportunity, and only have a death sentence to show for it. We as good friends, supported them, and loved them as much as we could. We stood with them until the very end. To see the rapidly deteriorating man, who was once so young and strong for his family, turn to dust. To see his once vibrant and beautiful young wife weep with such pain over his coffin, and his little girl look at her father's lifeless body with tears streaming down her face. For this, we stood. For this, we wept... For them. They had only been a part of our lives for 1 year. But they will stay with me for the rest of my life. Its the kind of hurt that runs too deep for words. To see youth and love stripped away so viciously and cruelly. To see a woman destroyed, and a little girl left fatherless. Its the kind of hurt that doesn't go away. I think about them often. I think about their pain, and how their lives might never be the same. I think about my life, and how it will never be the same. This man, so young and vulnerable; was the mark he left on this world, his life? Or was it his death?