One Day of pre-Mortal Grieving

Everyone says "Plan ahead."

Thus, I grieve now for my life,

a project that has been completed

although completion was always impossible,

and being a lifetime, always has the same result.

My mind has moved ahead today

in an imagination of the moment in which

I make the celebrated transition from living

to over, done, released, or bound to another world

which we perpetually ponder that we do not know

or we know and pretend not to know,

or we do not know and we pretend to know.

"Remember human, dust thou art and to dust

thou shalt return."

This announcement is supposed to inpire joy,

love, and peace, or religion.

Yet it seems that wisdom is always tucked away

in our backpacks as we march to infinite war.

I grieve all that I have missed,

thoughts I never had,

words I never spoke,

flowers I never smelled,

foods I never ate,

actions I never tried.

I am supposed to be pleased that I will be remembered.

In memoriam.

But this promise, often weak with age,

does not bring me either happiness or satisfaction.

I do not care what others remember after I am gone.

I want to know what I will remember after I am gone.

This is a difficult thing to do.

To plan ahead this anticipated condition we call death,

to conceptualize what seems in some ways to be good:

No more obligations.

But is that true?

How can I know?

Some who claim to know say that I will pray.

I will pray for the distraught people who are still alive.

Good grief! Will there be no end to my responsibilities?