BLESS THIS WARRIOR OF LIGHT.

THERE ARE NO ATHEISTS in the foxhole. I've heard this phrase for years, but never really believed it until now. Cradling my dying friend on the road to the clinic, I found myself invoking Ra and Horus and the King in Yellow and whoever else might come to my aid. It was the holistic approach to supplication, born of a desperate desire for this to not be the end, for this to be a beginning of some sort. I prayed for those beyond to kindly see him safe passage to the halls of the dead.

ANOTHER FRIEND OF MINE is losing a close relation; the cancer is circling, closing in, a boxer in a fixed fight. Another friend of mine lost a brother-in-law to suicide; the loneliness stalked him like a predator, until he welcomed it as a mate. Still another friend of mine lost a sister-in-law to a car crash; practice random violence and senseless acts of destruction--this seems to be the imperative of the universe. My great-aunt passed away last week.

ALL OF THIS HAPPENED IN THE LAST TWO MONTHS. I cannot claim to be surrounded by death; that lends too great a role to myself, a sidelines morale-booster in all but one of these cases. April is the cruellest month, but January will show you fear in a handful of snow.

I WRAPPED HIM IN A BURIAL SHROUD and touched him gently as the sedative took effect, speaking aloud some of my fondest memories of our brief time together. How I first rescued him from the vet; how he would run to me when I came home each day out of the simple joy of no longer being alone; how he feared loneliness so much that he would meow at the bathroom door when I took a shower, lest he lose even that little slice of time with me; how I never planned to have children, and how he was the first and best son I would ever have.

HE WENT SO QUIETLY. He didn't shudder, or cry. I simply looked into his eyes until there was nothing more to see.

NOW I JUMP AT SHADOWS and start at sudden sounds. I keep looking around, thinking he must be standing behind me, waiting to be picked up and stretched and laid across my shoulder as no other cat I have ever known has done.

I MISS HIM SO. Yet we all yearn for our lost loved ones--me and all of those I know who have lost or are losing loved ones during the past few weeks. I've never seen death's shadow cast itself so starkly or so profoundly in such a compact span of time.

FUCK DEATH.