what do you do

Fifteen minutes ago, I found out someone I knew of has passed away. I reviewed life around those who knew them, and it was almost as if things had become normal. On the outside. But for me. Curiosity racked my brain as I tried to figure out, what happens to those left behind? Beautiful words they'll never read. Emotion they'll never know - why does it come out after the sentiment "too late now."

Death is not so glamourous when the deceased doesn't know how much of a ripple effect they have caused. the irony is that death is for the living, some reminder that there are goals to be reached or that words should be said. the greater irony is how forgetful we can be to resume life as if death did not affect us directly. Thousands of people in Japan. Hundreds elsewhere - numbers are just vessels.

I barely knew this person, but somehow I feel their after effects pulsating around me. It's like being bowled over again. Graduation in a year. the real world. Loneliness. Apathy. Marriage. Relationships. Life. Having experienced a funeral, then vicariously experiencing through others how they will attend a funeral ... my hands are shaking. I've lost a lot of words that I want to force out, but every time I write, I delete. Every time I look back, I puke and want to shred... bits and parts of me.

With the knowledge that life is more... or that death never just around the corner waiting, it's just always waiting right there - could you or I leave the world now as someone satisfied? Or would you go with some regret, some "wish I could've" statement. 

I don't know where I am yet. But I think I know how I want to go, or where I'd like to be when I go. 

Only. Where is this person that I feel like I must gut myself to find? Sometimes I feel so angry I wish I could ...