Daily Write - I Wish I Had

You used to pester me so many of these worn out sayings. These axioms of life that you felt the need to hand down, like some wise sage sitting on a mountain top. Loss made a person realize what was special and what wasn't. Death makes a person appreciate life. Rejection steeled the resolve. All that was bad was somehow supposed to magically turn you into something that was a vast improvement on what you were before. We were to embrace struggle and adversity as the pressure that would strengthen us in the end.


Like reading out of a brochure full of clichéd life lessons, you spouted out these sentences time and time again. And for the life of me, I could never figure out why. What was your obsession? But now I have figured out, though I have figured it out too late.


You weren't talking to me as much as you were talking to yourself. You wanted it all to mean something. That all pain, loss, and anguish were meant for some ultimate goal in the end. That there was supposed to be some meaning in it that you were supposed to take away. That life wasn't simply a roll of the dice or a hand of cards played a the game of Fate and coincidences. Because, if it was all for nothing, if there was no purpose, how was anyone supposed to handle it?


I stopped listening after a while, growing tired of the fortune cookie advice. It got to the point where I could quote your answer before you parted your lips to say it. You became little more than an annoyance at that point. I just wish I had figured out why you held so steadfastly to those words.


Trying to make sense out of things that simply just happened. You couldn't accept the fact that it just happened, however. That some times there are no explanations, only acceptance. There had to be a reason, something deeper, something more. Everything was supposed to weave together into a bigger picture. It was just that you were incapable of seeing it. So you tried harder to put it all together.


But sometimes there is nothing. Nothing to learn. Nothing to improve upon. Nothing to make you a better person. Bad things happen. Period. There is no moral to the story. Life just continues. I wish I had put together what you were doing much sooner, then I would have seen what was happening. Perhaps then I would not have had to figure out how I am supposed to handle you not being around.