As the years pass, life’s final days, not hidden your own mortality, it becomes.

Maybe on that day, I’ll not be as well as I am today.

Perhaps, if lucky, wrinkled, weathered and grey I’ll be. With a body reminding me of the price being paid for all that discovery of youth.

Maybe I’ll be “losing it” in those times, but possibly on the inside will remain that little smile.

For when I am gone there will be nothing left that was me.

I’ll be quickly lost in the memories of the friends and family who will share same fate as mine. Gone will be the pressures and stress that made bound down and limited.

Gone too perhaps the laughter enjoyed, the caress of the hand and the kiss on the cheek. Gone all that I was told was important, good and bad gone.

But maybe still that little smile might remain somewhere in the stars.

For those that know, sometimes even the very young, work out what the real answers are.

When gazing out of the window to ponder, constant amazement overwhelms.

When you have eyes to see, those that know, it becomes abundantly clear.

Those are the nameless many that helped you become what you indeed became.

These are those that did things for you without attention paid, nameless in the background. Those that drew close when calamity knocked. That decided to give of themselves without thought of recompense. Giving for those people they know had need, that they in turn they knew not.

These are also the ones that gave helped you to see that it was you that you really needed to get to know and understand.

Those that helped you to free of all that binds and holds back.

Those that helped you discover that the real value of this ride called Life, was to reach out and help all those around.

Oh, and of that “little smile” mentioned before.

This is the smile of those that understand real success and richness.

The individuals that carry eternal gratitude for those that taught so much and the environment in which all things took place.

It also equally a smile of knowing that others will be able to stand on the shoulders of your efforts to empower others. In the same manner that was gifted to you.

It is the smile of knowing that you tried, in spite of all that came against you, to make this place a better place.

For when I am gone, the Gratitude and Love that you were will remain. Steadfast in those that you empowered.

These are truly the elusive riches that many miss. It is in these things that what was once you, will remain forever more.

For all else turns to dust.

02.02.2020