Ours

When we are children we throw tantrums, someone has taken away a toy and we want it and it's not fair, why should they have it and not us?

And when we are in that awkward in-between we pout in our rooms, when someone changes alliances and no longer wants our company during twenty minute lunches in sweaty cafeterias. How dare they take them away, it's not fair, why should they have it and not us?

We grow older and longer, and are doing just fine with another, and then someone takes away that another or they take themselves away. How dare they go away, it's not fair, why should someone else have them and not us?

And then we're quite old (or in the very sad instances not so old), someone goes far far away that's been with us for what seems like forever and not long enough at the same time. How dare they go away? It's not fair, why should someone else have them, why should their bodies be gone, with nothing but maybe ashes left behind?

I'm beginning to think these small things are practice: a toy, a friend, a lover, a partner, a parent. To prepare us for the deepest and rawest losses we'll face. Luckily grief and loss have only visited my doorstep in the most expected ways, and maybe I'll go back and read this when it does visit me properly and I won't throw the computer down the stairs.