End of Days

This isn't my handiwork, as much as I'd like to say it is. It's my friends' Tyler Knott Gregson and he shared it with me when I was chatting with him about death and what it does to a family, and to an individual. I laid in bed a good hour this morning working something like this out in my head, but Tyler's version written just a few days ago, really makes me smile :)


Always love you, Grandpa. Thank you for starting out all of us with a great life and a great example. 

End of Days - Tyler Knot Gregson

How will it come, when my number is up and my name has been
called and the queue is behind me, and behind me alone?  How
will I meet my end?  Will it be swift?  Will it be long and
drawn out and will I know the truth behind agony?  Will I
scream or will I close my eyes quietly and let a smile crawl
across my lips for the very last time? Maybe, just maybe if
I am lucky enough, my lightning will come back to finish
the job she started 16 years ago.  Maybe she so badly missed
my skin and bones and the way my blood sounded floating through
my heart that she will one day break down and need to find me
again.  Maybe she will make it quick and show me everything
the universe is made of in those brief moments before the heat
and the flash and the starting over.  Maybe her light will be
the sunshine of my next life, blinding me all over again.  
However, whenever and whyever, I will not be afraid.  I can
promise you this.  I will be ready to start over and do it
better that time than I did this time.  To love more and hate 
less, to try more and fail more too.  To hope, with all the beats
of my naive and optimistic heart.  To say it, whatever it may
be and to whomever it should be said to, the first time, without
waiting or hesitating or thinking of so many reasons not to. I
will cry more, laugh more, dream more, and write even more
than I already do.  I will love the forests and I will love
the trees, the pieces and the whole, I will love.  More.  So
much love that no one will have any idea what to do with me.  
They will watch me with a confused look and wonder why I give
so much and do not ask for more in return.  I will give it
because giving it IS getting it and there is nothing quite so
important as emptying your heart out every single day and
leaving nothing undone, no declarations of it unsaid.  I will
not only stop and smell the flowers, I will plant them myself
and watch them grow old with me.  I will pull over and dance
in every single rainfall and I will make snow angels even when
there is hardly any snow left for the wings.  I will never, ever
believe in the words “too Late” because it’s never too late
to be exactly what you wish, do exactly what you should, say
exactly what needs to be heard, and live the exact life you
should be living.

I want to meet Death and shake the hand of my maker covered
in flesh decorated with scars and ink and the secret stories
that only they can tell.  I want her to look me up and look
me down and raise an eyebrow when she realizes that I have
the sea in my veins and that I have from the moment of my
birth.  That in all her years of picking up those that
cannot pick themselves up again, she’s never met anyone
quite like me.