A friend of mine recently succumbed to cancer. He was a young man with a promising future but I guess life had other plans for him. I hope he’s in a better place now and free from his sufferings. Through the past decade, I’ve lost one too many friends and it dawned upon me that life can be fragile just like that.

Life’s unexpected sometimes when death can simply strike out of the blue; at other times, it can be long gestating. Regardless, I think nobody can fathom the magnitude of the loss when the time finally comes, except their families and closest ones. I don’t know if they’d eventually come to terms with the loss but what I know is that even with time, not all wounds will heal completely.

Each time I’m confronted by such tragedy, I felt like I’ve lost a small part of my life. I wonder if I could’ve done more for them when they were still around. Or if I could somehow reverse the passage of time, spend a little more time with them or even prevent the inevitable from happening altogether.

But alas I’m only human. I can’t change the course of history, so I try to remember them by carrying with me their revered qualities in the things I do and in a way, immortalize their spirits.