Every traveler returns home 🕊🤍

You have traveled so far and seen through so many eyes. You’ve heard the final notes of a lifelong hymn. It’s so terrible for me that you haven’t witnessed, to see the grateful pain in our eyes. I’m still in pain of you leaving this world from the comfort of our home, in bed where you’ve slept for decades, the mattress bending its springs to the memory of your shape.

I have been close to you before and until your last lying I’m still close to you, literally. For many, many years, you fought on the side of fairness, but that struggle took its toll. You have endured this life by seeing the unbelievable expanse of what others can endure.

I have held on to my stories by understanding that each of us contains a multitude of stories, and none of these stories end up saying the exact same thing. Each of us holds atleast one story in which we are surprised by our own fortitude. Each of us holds atleast one story that never came true, the story we most wanted to be able to tell.

All of the senses are pulled back commemorating the days you’re still with us, as vision and hearing and smell and taste and touch all retreat beyond, I struggle to play back the days I cherish the most. I’ve wished that God will give you another day, another chance to live. If that things had happened, more than anything, I would like one last time for you and with rest of our family to sit in the sun on an April afternoon, a good book in my lap, you and Ina are up on cooking of foods with a song coming over the radio. To have one of those days when we get to feel each others affection and care. To love and be loved is to leave traces of permanence across an otherwise careless world.

For fifteen years, you’ve been my sole constant, my companion, the one who knows the things I’ve seen and sees the things I’ve known. I hope I have aided you. You’ve made mistakes, but you’ve never been hateful. You’ve made faulty judgements, but always sought remedy when you discover your faults. You’ve tried to lead a life of good, because it is the only way you know to lead a good life. No one can substitute all your achievements and accomplishments in life. Nothing beats your presence. You’re connoisseur in dealing real life situations. I believe that in your fifteen years in service, you’ve served this country well. Every traveler returns home. So as you.