Say something hums in my head as the tears are still warm on my cheek. This cancer that affects Sean, and Scott, Sarah’s mother, and never to be forgot, my own Grandmother, cannot be reasoned with. Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters each found a way to be okay in their limited number of days. Because the life in their days was not limited. We search for meaning in the stars and find a deafening silence in return. This love we bare for one another cannot be written on the board in such a way that it is encapsulated or contained. It is without bounds. It is without limits, because it is not conquered. Not even by death. We each seek in life to cure what ails us. And it is written that if we seek, we shall find. But how do we know when we’ve found it. It all too often finds us when we least expect it. When we stop looking. When we have given enough of ourselves that we nearly cease to exist, and our ego feels like we do, that is when we are prepared to receive the cure for what ails us in our innermost. When perhaps we cease to dream, is exactly when our wildest dreams may, seemingly unintentionally come true. Our breath tightens in our chest as we uncontrollably weep. One hand visits the pane in the window to see if it matches. Our wings feel tattered and we ignore that they are even there. And then, someone smiles. Someone gives a word or three that is dripping with truth, and that warmth washes over us just as the tears start to collect at the base of our chin. What is loss? What is gain in the richest sense of the word? It is that idea that we belong to each other, and that collectively we belong to the source; to the authorship of all life and inspiration. The truth dripping from the words wets the ink, and blurs the page same as our vision when we can’t help but mourn the loss of a concept, principle, or individual. The former togetherness seems to taunt the present set of resentful entities. We can become snared in our own faults and darken another’s stars for brief moments that seem to echo across eternity. The sickness makes us aware of the healing. The fact that we are going to die makes us cling to life. The rain prepares the ground for the rays. The fall prepares us for the raise. When this love touches our hearts, we are forever changed. It becomes a part of who we are: an indelible mark left upon our soul. We call out to friends in the darkness, and there is one that cannot leave our side. We mourn the loss of the child in us that used to dream bigger, and ask why? These wrinkles across time create bends and folds that help us look forward in anticipation, and backward upon ourselves in regret. But the machine has not been invented yet, we are bound by time. At least for now. And, there is no button to push. These moments we have with each other, we may never get again. We may never again sit beside the greatest loves of our lives. And that must be okay for it is and will be as such no matter our kicking and screaming. We can choose to be at war with existence, or embrace the flow of the world which comes in waves, and resets our perspective. Breathe. Love. Speak the words as they come, and do not balk at the silence. Let it overwhelm us. Let it sit beside us and whisper that which we long to hear. Let the touch of autumn reverse the trend and cause us to lift. When the voice speaks from the innermost, it advocates for reconciliation, it begs for forgiveness, it speaks of love yet untarnished, and it sides with the playful children who trust and still dream big. And then the voice ceases to mince words and simply smiles. It touches the backs our necks. At the exact point that is the bottom of our brain, and the top of our spine. And, in that moment we can glimpse what it is to completely forget whatever it is that we thought was wrong. We can realize in an instant that this forever is all we have, that we are exactly where we are supposed to be, and that everything, somehow, is unfolding as it should. The boy in me still dares to dream big. Please help poke holes in the obsidian veil to reveal more stars along the way. Thank you.