I wonder

I wonder what it’s like.

No more pain, no more questions. No more anxiety, guilt, punishment, fear.

The weight of heavy burdens on your shoulders suddenly disappeared. Your final breath on earth and then…

I wonder what it’s like.

Is the air smooth as butter? No more ragged breaths that feel like glass. Free to breathe and run and never tire.

Those legs — oh, those legs! No more aches and pains. No more wobbling beneath your own weight. No more reminiscing of a past lost because you’re standing on your own two feet.

I wonder what it’s like.

Walking through those woods. The crunch of leaves and twigs breaking beneath your boots. A dog or two by your side. The silence of being alone in the woods, ears alert, listening to the sounds of wildlife. The smell of death on the forest floor.

Isn’t it funny the way death is a part of life? We don’t mourn the death of trees because they grow back. And from you, Papa, we have all grown too.

I wonder what it’s like.

Without you here. It hurts. It doesn’t feel fair. A life lost so young to a battle fought so bravely. Cancer is a cruel fate. “We’ll cure it but it’ll kill you.” Which path do you choose? You chose to stand and fight and we were here the whole time.

In life, things are out of our control. We pray to God but we pray selfishly. We want you here for us, but it was God who ended your suffering.

I don’t want you to wonder.

If you were loved, if you’ll be missed. You left so many broken hearts. Hearts full of love and life and wisdom and pride.

As I sit here trying to grapple with the fact that I will never see you here on this earth, as tears leak from my eyes, as I tremble trying to figure out this feeling of grief, I want you to know that it is proof of how very much you were loved.

Goodbye is so, so hard. It is definitive. It is accepting of a fact I selfishly do not want to be true. But if the alternative was your pain and suffering, I will accept this as it is.

And as you’re walking up there—because I know that’s what you’re doing—I can’t help but wonder how many deer you’ve gotten. Because my prayer to God was that you never miss a shot.