I've gone through plenty of loss in my life.
And I promise this isn't going to be the poem you think it's going to be.
So anyways as I was saying,
I've lost quite a few people who were important to me,
and I went through the grieving process,
blah, blah, blah you know the routine.
Keep in mind these deaths were not easy deaths to deal with.
I've lost three dogs, a cat, a hamster, countless fish, an aunt, a cousin, a grandma, and a grandpa.
None of these deaths were easy to deal with,
even the animals
but I recovered fairly quickly.
I learned that they were in a better place.
But I never felt I really learned anything about life through these deaths.
They were all long coming,
the animals were old,
and so were the people.
All of the relatives had terminal illness'
so we had time to prepare ourselves.
It wasn't until I was sitting in my basement,
reading a post on Facebook that I realized how short life is.
I came upon a post about a man who I work with,
he is a manager and the head chef at the restaurant.
I read that he had been in a fatal motorcycle accident.
Out of all the people in the world,
he would not have been my pick for "next to die".
He died at a heart-breakingly young 41 years of age.
I had never been close with this man,
he was simply a chef at the restaurant,
who occasionally yelled at me,
and questioned me about my *** use,
and my tattoo.
But hearing about his death,
broke my heart even more than losing my family members did.
I thought of his children,
a 5 year old and a 1 year old,
and I found that I was much sadder than I expected to be.
His wife and children had seen him a day prior,
and then the next thing they know,
he was just gone.
No goodbyes,
no last words.
Now I'm not writing this to make anyone sad.
I'm writing this for myself,
and others who needed help to realize
how beautiful,
and breathtaking this life actually is.
His death has helped me realize that.
I may not love myself everyday,
but I love everyday, that I am blessed enough to open my eyes.
It's become a cliche to say how short life is,
but it truly is.
It's sad,
but it's also beautiful at the same time.
We get one chance,
one.
I think that's amazing.
We're given this one chance to do whatever we want,
knowing that we aren't immortal,
we will die in the end,
not knowing when the end will be,
and we still decide to keep on living.
Hoping everyday will give us something more.
One more little memory to take with us for the rest of our days.
So after I'm done writing this,
I'm going to go to sleep,
and hope that when I wake up tomorrow,
I will still realize how beautiful it is just to be breathing.
RIP Dino.