But by the end of the week, you pack the car and head east, until the traffic dissolves and the concrete gives way to lush wilderness. The road ends in ocean, the evening turns into a sky full of stars and you remember what it is to be a tiny, insignificant human in the cosmos. The air is thick with cicada song, you exhale.
On the other side of the ocean, an old man takes his last breaths. He knows it, you know it. Your father sits by his side and doesn't know how to put into words the sorrow of loss, the sadness of letting go of one who saw your entire life. You sit with a cigarette in the dark night and try to speak the words for him, but all you get is: life is what it is, and then it is over. It is sad when it goes, it is miles deep of empty, but here we are. There is no God, there is no straw to grasp after this, and therein lies the comfort. We have but these stars, this wilderness, this tiny speck of life in an ocean of space beyond. It will not matter to space when we go. But it matters to us.
Therein lies the secret to life.
And that is full well, as it is.
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