Without You

Kala Shute

December 24, 2017

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I was innocent and oblivious to the pain the world sees with its eyes everyday. I was raised to pray for people who hurt, being so young I hadn't truly experienced it myself.

I was taught to be kind to people less fortunate and to help those in need. Without was a word not in my vocabulary. 

People without homes, people without food, people without work, people without a family to come home to at the end of the day. I didn't understand until I went a day without my dad. A week without him, a month without him, a year.

 A year turned into many and that was when I grew up. I grew up because I finally felt the pain of living that word. 

The word created a void that needed to be filled but at the time all that could was pain. The pain grew stronger when I watched her take her last breath, and I counted her heartbeats until they finally stopped. Soon the word without was the only thing I felt.

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Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire.     

-Francois de la Rouchefoucauld

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