Forever is a Series of Moments
There’s a truth I learned about forever.
It was there on the sofa in the living room of my childhood house, the walls an ugly burnt orange, the Hallelujah chorus blaring in the background, twinkling lights of red, green, and yellow against the green of that artificial tree.
And they, whose friendships I most treasured, the day we stepped outside together to play as we had done a million times before, not knowing we would nevermore return to the days of foraying into unknown groves and the climbing over walls.
Perhaps we are all but memory in the end, as the poets say. Those flashes streak across the canvas of our minds, the paint cracking with the passage of time until faded past remembrance.
And the present becomes the past becomes a memory the instant we think of it.
And forever is a series of moments that we never realize until they are gone.
There's a truth I learned about love.
It was there in the times my mother dropped what she was doing to make my favourite noodles, just because I said I wanted them, the phone calls when she said, "I made some food for you; come pick it up sometime."
And there, when my godsister asks, "How's work going?" referring to my writing, and I realise that the path I've chosen is valid and seen.
The small and fleeting moments that could pass me by, unacknowledged, if I let them, like when my husband says I needn't do a single thing to be named, "Useful," then brings me my favourite snacks for no reason at all; like when my best friend brings a giant cooler to my house for a three-day visit so she can make sure I eat when despair is clouding my will to survive.
Perhaps love is not the grand displays that capture media attention, but in the quiet day-to-day instances of presence that say without words, "I see you, no matter how messy you think you are."
And it stays, and stays, and stays.
There's a truth I learned about living.
That it can hurt so much, so much—the longer we live, the more we grieve—in this cycle of loving and losing and loving and losing, and the cycle of fighting against my own mind that wants to let go.
And there, in those shadowy and lonely places, I remember the moments of forever; of lists—weekly lists, daily lists, written with someone I loved enough to stay alive for—lists titled, "Reasons to Stay Alive," and I think, sometimes, even as some reasons disappear, I grasp for others and weave them into the frayed net below me.
Because my reasons are the people I love, and even for the ones who have gone before, I mustn't follow yet, for the ones who are still here.
There's a truth I learned about forever.
That it is in me, and in you. Because a soul does not disintegrate with death, so my faith says. It carries eternity.
So, in between the beige walls that shelter my family, walking floors under which we scratched blessings for a future I couldn't yet fathom, I look into eternity through my children running across those floors with shrieking laughing, in my husband's dimpled smiles and teasing boops, in phone calls and voice messages with friends, in the simplicity of shared meals upon a well-worn table.
And I say to myself, reasons to stay alive are here in front of you.
Look.
About Me: I’m Tiffany, a literary fantasy and memoir author. My writing has been published by The Cultivation Project and Renewal Missions. I’ve been writing this publication since 2023. All words are 100% human-generated by me without AI assistance. Order my books here.