The Chalice

Time can be defined as the experience of events between birth and death, and our lives, I think, are defined by the association of friends and family who shared those events. The quantity of events which are shared with them builds and defines the depth of our mutual relationships and strengthens that mutual bond. As the bond strengthens with each passing event, characteristics such as trust, respect and admiration are created and incubated in the blending of those traits. We come to expect and take for granted that sharing ... and enjoy it to its fullest. Then ... after years and years, the bond is broken by the Call to the Other Side. The void that Calling leaves is an open, searing wound. We tell ourselves that the individual called is in a better place. We tell ourselves that whatever degree of stress they felt is: no more. And ... those things are true. However, large, entire sections of our lives feel as though they've been involuntarily ripped from our being. Future enjoyments of their camaraderie will never be constructed. The pain created within ourselves at their loss, is selfish because we've become so accustomed to the joys created by the sharing with them of each of our lives that we fell we "owned" it - but we didn't ... we only shared it, and now we feel betrayed by its absence. In the final tally, the things which can never be eradicated from our minds are the mutually created images of those events which helped define the lives we lived - and shared - with those who assisted in its' construction. Remaining are the memories as our personal chalice which contains every conscious happening of our lifetimes, along with those who shared it - and our minds will sip of its' contents whenever reverie, and thoughts of them, demands.