When Death Stands Beside You

Death does not knock. It waits. It waits in the hum of machines, in the pauses between a heartbeat. It waits in the way your name stays too long in someone’s throat and never comes out again. It is not a stranger. It wears your mother’s hands when she folds the blanket of someone who will no longer sleep. It is the smell of burnt coffee in a hospital hallway, the silence after a phone call you don’t want to answer. Death is not cruel. It is a mirror, and when it stands beside you, it will not speak. It will only ask, Did you live? Did you leave the world softer than you found it? Did you love so fiercely that your absence will tear the sky? It does not break you. It sculpts you. It strips you bare, until all that remains is the fire you forgot to tend, the light you never let out, the truth you spent years running from. You will see it, in the reflection of your child’s tears, in the tremble of a lover’s hands as they hold yours for the last time. You will feel it, in the weight of every unsaid word, every unfinished kiss, every thread of time you thought you had. But death is not an end. It is a hand, steady and strong, that sets you down gently into the arms of those who remain. And when it leaves, it will carry only your silence, your shadows, your truths. So when death stands beside you, do not turn away. Meet its gaze, and let it remind you: You are still alive. You are the fire. Now burn. 3 February 2025