They say you don’t choose your family. And you have to love them in life, sickness, and death.
And you do.
But one day they vanish and become one with the Spirit of the Cosmos, disappearing into immateriality, and you die inside a little… or more.
And the pain is so sharp, so acute, so hot, you feel it in your guts, in your entrails, behind your eyes. It is so intense it defines you. It marks you. It ties you to the earth. It brings you to your knees. It downs you.
And when you can no longer feel anything but the weight of the legacy of your ancestors, weighing you down so hard, it takes a friend to tell you “Breathe, chin up, look at the sky, this too shall pass!”, it is then you realize how you alone are left to carry the torch forward.
How you alone must carry the name forward.
In truth it takes a Friend, a true friend to tell you all that. And even though you don’t know how to escape the burden of the overwhelming guilt of might have beens, you soldier on. You dig in into your monumental pain, you rein in the tendrils of despair, of self-annihilation, and proclaim:
I shall survive. My name will carry on. My blood will live on.
And when that happens, your friend is there to help you through the pain. They make you navigate its treacherous shores, where many a soul has found a permanent lodging. But they pull you out the maelstrom of your despair.
So, in that unique moment you realize your blood exists and carries on because of Friendship.
And that’s when you realize that Family and Friends are inextricably linked with one another.
Death is never final. Friendship is eternal. It can unite generations, fashion bridges, and if you’re lucky, Family and Friends become One Entity, a Reason to Live, providing Meaning to your Life.
It is the value of your Friends and the robustness of your Family that anchor you into the ever shifting nebulous present.
Götterdämmerung 