and i gotta get a move on before the sun

i hear my baby callin my name

and i know that shes the only one

and if i die in Raleigh

at least i will die free

my first thought about hearing the words "has passed away" were a patronizing growl at whatever forces govern this universe, why is life so cruel.

i thought about your love. i thought about my family as a whole- how much my papa loved gram. and in one word, she was taken away- Huntingtons. how my papa took care of his love, his companion through the throws of illness, through the trials of disease, and picked up the wretched pieces of a woman he no longer recognized. And he loved them. He had his wretched, remaining pieces and he loved them and he had his cooking and he loved it. Papa was born both a cook and an engineer; in artist of opposing mediums. Of the cold touch of steel, of bombs and nuclears and an artist too of aromas and fine spices and golden-roasted christmas hams. He could make something beautiful out of these cold metals, these fleshy and slimy slabs of bloody meat. He made something beautiful of what remained of his wife; cooked her disease-ridden shards into the most delicious and satisfying love.

so too did this other grandmother of sorts i didnt know too well. their love was a bit crazy, following the art they loved; puppets. He loved puppets. He knew everything about them, and painstakingly devoted a life to creation. He got his own puppetry institute in Connecticut. I remember walking around there and being scared of those lifeless, yet recognizably human, faces. And in one word all this was stolen away; Parkinsons. Those intricately painted puppets which required unnerved patience and the steadiest of hands were left with a master of the unshakable trembles of Parkinsons. To see him not even able to hold his puppets anymore. What wooden and stringed people used to move with fluid motions and vivacious voices now left cold behind glass. And he shook in hunger for them. They were the grandparents that remembered to send me birthday cards every year, without fail.

And I drove through the rain with my father and couldnt help thinking what one word would take him away from me, and all he loves of this world. I thought that inevitably, for everyone, this universal word to steal everything away-- Death. I know that it is not that life is cruel, but Death. Cruel because life is so insatiably beautiful. Cruel only in comparison to his glorious life. Cruel because it takes us away from life. But its so necessary. Just as happiness isnt quite as deep without the hollows of sadness, so too would life be ignorant bliss without something to check us all. Is this cruelty?