Death. We look to it as nothing more than the end. To depart, ruin, demise, bereavement. Nothing more than the reminder of our own humanity. It is a signal to the end. A period at the end of a sentence. The sun meeting the horizon. Fall fading into winter. It is a trivial chasm that grows inside of each of us, but is overshadowed by life. Life is radiant, brilliant and blinding. But the world is a scale. There comes a time when everything must balance out, debts repaid and dues owed. Light cannot exist without darkness. Joy without sorrow. And life without death. It is at this time now that the universe has set its scales to equilibrium.

I have firm belief that my father is strong, able to face what is only inevitable for all of us. Living, living a full, satisfying life is harder than any barrier death could put forth. Yet, he has done that. Still death isn’t easy. Yet his fear was not death, he was under no circumstance looking for something other than that, he had no ambitions to be perpetual, eternal, someone sucked into a void of infinity. His fear was loss of what had given him a life to sustain; which was family, an ever-growing cord held intact by love.

He gave me a foundation for which I am building my pillars, that was set in brick and cement, plastered with love, with no cracks in between. No matter if my structure falls, when I rebuild, the foundation will remain undeterred by storm or fire.

He will never be gone, because a person’s presence lays in more than something physical. A person’s existence lies in something ethereal. As coal burns, it is never fully consumed while its embers and ashes remain. When we strip down flesh, bone, and blood, we discover a person truly remains in something intangible, untouchable, but felt. And my father is everywhere.

He is in the hallway at our house where every night my mother leaves the light on in his final resting place. He is in his bedroom reading the newspaper. He is in the living room, while I wait for everyone to wake up so we can open presents on Christmas morning. He is waiting at the dining table so we can eat Thanksgiving dinner as a family. He is sitting in a chair a few years from now at my high school graduation. He is walking down the aisle with me one day when I get married.
He is in the sky and in the grass. He is in the air and in the water. He is in the clouds and in the wind. He is watching over us all right now as we weep tears as wish him luck carrying on the next part of his journey.

Even as we look at death as a thief, sweeping in to steal moments, opportunities, and memories; it only does with purpose. Its intentions are never clear as it takes someone from present tense to past. I love my dad. And right now he is in a place where there is only happiness and love. A place where he is nothing more than closer to eternity.