Tomorrow

Among the many flaws of being human, among the countless failings as individuals, as a specie, the one that plagues most, of which we remain consistently oblivious to, is the misplaced belief that there will always be tomorrow; the false faith in immortality.

We live lives believing there would be a tomorrow, and the day after, and the days that follow the day after. That the seasons that would return, the sun would rise again and the future would always return. We step into sleep expecting to awake again. It is what gives us hope, it is what permits us to make plans, to dream, to desire, to wish. For we all have hopes and dreams in our lives and many of which take time. So we live the present for the future in the belief that what we do today can be realised tomorrow, what we sow can be reaped in time from the present.

But what if there were no tomorrow? What if we awake to apocalypse? What if the world ended today? What if your world decided to stop? What if you had no tomorrow?

Some of us never greet tomorrow. All of us will eventually cease to see a new day and remain in the solitude of an eternal slumber.

What would life be if you knew that there was no tomorrow? How would you live your life knowing this could be your last? What if it is, unbeknowst to you?

Humanity is the living dead, the archetype of lifeless corpses wandering from day to day till the last syllable of recorded time. We live in a state of dreaming and in that state we often fail to realise that there may not be a tomorrow. And so we walk through life failing to see the ground beneath us, the sky above, and the people beside. And so we carry with us the hatred, the anger, the pride, the unwillingness to forgive to the graves we have excavated for ourselves.

What if there were no tomorrow?

For patients with terminal illnesses, for those who lie bedridden awaiting the inevitable, for those who've witnessed death in war, famine, and conflict, for those who've had come close to never seeing another day, for those who've lost someone near and dear, someone who was valued as much as seeing a new tomorrow. They know there are no guarantees of another day. They know that it could all end at an instant without warning, without precaution. They know that there never will be another opportunity to say the things they want to say, to utter the words of love or forgiveness, to have another try. They know that "tomorrow's another day" is nothing more than a vain and misplaced attempt to think immortally. They know the present is important for it will never again return; what is lost will be gone and will never again return.

Perhaps that is the irony of being human. We'll never know what we've got till we've lost it. And we need to lose it, whatever form 'it' takes, in order to know.

But for us who've experienced loss and the possibility of a no-tomorrow, our lives are enriched by the knowledge that the present is what matters. And it is in the present that we can make a difference. In the present we can speak the words we've always wanted, lay hands of forgiveness when we could not before, live life awake.

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Goodbye my friend. I, like the rest of humanity, look back with regret wishing I had more time with you and to have had the opportunity to let you know, beneath our stoic greetings and masculine fronts, how much you meant to me. But now you're gone, without warning. I grieve for your loss but I know, despite by cynical doubt, you're in a better place. I'd like to believe someone as good as you deserves better than this life you had.

With your departure, in your now temporal absence, thank you for reminding me that nothing lasts an eternity, not life. Only the knowledge of having loved and been loved...

Remember me, wherever you are, as I will remember you.