Life gone in a flash... or a spark

Time is a strange, fluid element. Mercurial in its ability to stretch and shrink, stop and speed by. Yesterday marked five months since Chris' death. Unbelievable. Already some memories are becoming fuzzy; others are all too painfully sharp and clear. Possibly never to fade.

His death is still unreal in so many ways - a nightmare from which I cannot awaken. Our time together - so fleeting - seems like a dream to which I cannot return.

When we were separated during my last term in grad school and Chris was working hundreds of kilometres away, four months seemed like an eternity. Now I will begin to know what an eternity apart truly feels like. Or not...

I've been asked what I thought happens to us after we die. Like everyone but Lazarus, I don't know. I know that I don't believe in a heaven where angels walk on streets of gold and strum harps. But I do believe that all of that electricity and 'life energy' that courses through our bodies, keeping us alive, cannot simply disappear. Mother Nature doesn't do things that way. She's the original recycler!

I imagine that 'life energy' slipping out of our bodies after we die and surging up into the skies, much like bonfire sparks swirling up into a night-time sky. A romanticized image? Perhaps... who knows. We all have our own vision of heaven. The vision that gets us through what seems like eternity.
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