Even though I have been anticipating this call for a week

(The end was near.

Suspended in a place between life and death

The body still holding on

The mind not quite ready to let go)

The news still hits hard.

I want everything to stop.

The incessant swirl of news and the passage of time

I want the world to be still.

And let me sit with the magnitude of what has happened.

I want the world to slow for my tears.

To acknowledge your passing from this world to what is next. As you transcend.

And I know it will not,

It cannot.

But I will put the closed sign on the door.

Take the phone off the hook.

And we will gather in the kitchen

Eating leftovers and sipping tea.

The food tastes like nothing.

The tea is bitter with our tears.

And we talk late into the evening of how your smile and laughter could brighten a room.

We hold you in our hearts now.

Forever.

Until we too pass on and pass our existence to those in turn that we will leave behind.

Death comes for us all in its own time.