i was with her

i held her hand. i put my face next to hers and counted her breaths. she hadn't been speaking for at least a day. she had been unconscious for a number of hours. her breaths were so shallow. i held her hand. i told her i loved her, that i was there, over and over until the words became meaningless.

at one moment, she was there - a flicker of life, weak, but still there. and the next moment, she was gone. 

i had expected there to be some sort of grand realization. some sort of grandiose shift in the metaphysical fabric of reality. but it was so quiet. one moment there, and one moment gone. 

what is it?

what is this life that can be, at one moment, present, and the next, gone? it can be dwindled, too, i saw it dwindle. but there is a perceptible moment when it leaves. gone. what is it?

consciousness that emerges from patterns of electrical activation, in synchronicity with the swirling chemical maelstrom of the body. a history. a voice. feelings, chemicals. sensation. perception. internal monologue, thought. the future, like a path unfolding from your chest.

what does it feel like to have it winked out? what does it feel like to not have a future? in her circumstance, did it narrow, or fade, or slowly dissociate?

did she know i was holding her hand?

  

when i try to reflect upon my own consciousness i experience something akin to what you see when you place two mirrors facing each other. except this time my face and the back of my head aren't in the way. i can see the path leading all the way in. but i can't look into it because the depth of it makes me shut my eyes. i can't look into it too far, because i can't begin to comprehend. 

i of course reflect upon my own mortality. time. the fact of dwindling, which is the act of aging. the inevitable experience of knowing just what it is like to have no future. an answer known, and never shared.

what is it like to live your last second in that knowing?

i worry about those that i love. i am snappish and snide and sarcastic at times. do they know that i love them? how can i protect this blaze of life inside of them? how can i cup the flicker in my hands? how do i know that when i say goodbye, i will see them again? what if i'm not there to hold their hands?
 
  

the grief rolls and roils. it is eternal, because death is eternal. and we manage, because we have a future. there will be another moment that follows this one. and another. and another.

and another.