Memento Mori
I think about the people whom I have met whom I will never see again. Not only the people who have passed away, but the friends whom I will never speak to again for one reason or another. Some of them have left my life due to its natural ebbs and flows, like my best friend from before I moved in elementary school. For others, it was their choice to never speak to me again. And there are countless others whom I have just fallen out of touch with, and it just doesn't quite make sense now to reach out to them, since I haven't texted them in years.
Yet all the same, I remember them. I remember them as children, though they, like me, are adults now. I remember them at the one point of time where our paths intersected, and not as they are after our paths diverged. I remember those that have likely forgotten me, as just another face in the endless collection of people that we meet. And likewise, I have also forgotten some that I have met.
Each individual I have met has influenced my life. Some of my habits were copied from friends, and some of the music I listen to was recommended by people I don't talk to anymore. My mindset is still shaped by past communities, entire groups of people who are stuck in my past.
To speak of the dead, I am grateful that my list of people that have passed is small. I am grateful that I have not lost anyone close to me. I am grateful that I still have all of my friends, even if they are no longer in my life.
In the future, I will die. As is human nature, I do not know when or how I will die. I do not know what will happen after I die. I'm almost certain a number of people will be saddened by it, and some type of funeral will occur. After that, then what? Will I be nothing more than a corpse in the ground? Or will I transcend to becoming a concept tucked away inside of people's heads, a mere fraction of the person I was, with them never truly knowing my inner self?
The death after death is what I am afraid of. Eventually, the concept of me that lives on after my death will also decay, lost to time. As those that remember me forget or pass on, the concept I have become will also shrink. I will go from an individual whom was known to an abstract concept. I will be known only by a name and a relation, something like a mom, grandmother, or sister, words that could be applied to any number of other people and not me alone.
Even after that, the abstract concept of me will fade too, with time, as is its nature. Time is not cruel, it is apathetic in how it wields its force. I still have time until that last part of me fades. So until then, I will remember. I will remember those who are no longer with me. I will remember those who have passed.
Memento Mori.