In this life we are

Just keeping company for the dying.

In every connection that we make,

Each meal eaten

Around conversation,

Every shouldered cry,

Or secret whispered

Behind cupped hands

Into ears,

The warm embrace,

Or enthusiastic pat

Of “atta boy,”

And every giggle

Pulled out of

Every joke told.

We’re all just climbing

Towards a light,

Or falling into

Darkness, in the end.

And this is what they tell me

When I hold the hands

of those

Easing into their final breaths

They say,

“That must be so hard to do,

My friend”

Or

“That takes something special”

But isn’t that exactly what

We all are

Doing every day?

Just joining others

In the journey

To safely walk them home?