Given the life that I have led, I had always imagined that my end would come suddenly. At the one second, I would be padding around on some adventure or another, and then next would find me lying down with a somewhat bemused look on my face, dead! Sadly, it seems that this has been yet another fantasy, for death comes slowly at me, like a sea fog. Cold and grey, and quite visible, it brings with it the threat of something I might not enjoy.
I have never been afraid of death. Perhaps the process of getting there might be cause for some concern, but not of death itself. Rather, as I grow older, I crave rest. Once, a greater thinker than I, wrote – “What man, who for all his life craves sleep, can now fear death?” He was writing to his lady friend, while I am now writing to anyone who will listen. The fact is his words were true.
Sometimes I wonder what words will be written on my tombstone. Will someone compose a eulogy for me, and if so, what will it say?
The problem, as I see it, is there is not a soul upon this earth who truly knows what I am, and what I have lived for. Many I have known have heard “chunks” – but not one person, alive or dead, was ever privy to the whole story. Moreover, as I write this I fear the chance is gone. Put simply, it is far too late. There is no time to explain the why, where, or what I truly am. Nor even whom. Those I leave behind will have to be content with snippets. Small fillets of stories that make up the complete book, to share among you all and possibly made some sense of between them, should you ever decide to try.
