I spent the last 5 years watching and walking alongside you. At times it seemed dark and lonely. Did anyone understand this journey? Could I explain what it was like to watch you die from ALS? It was a long tunnel, filled with darkness and light along the way. I learned to embrace laughter, to see life in a different light. With impending death comes seeing the joy in life that we over look, relishing in the smaller delights of life that are larger than they appear. The last five years have imprinted in my mind brighter moments that I would have over looked, savouring moments with you that I would have let slip away to focus on the more consuming but inconsequential aspects of my life, work. It’s hard to not have you here physically, but our time together helped me see what mattered, and where my energies and ambitious should lay and what should be left to wither away. When I think I can’t do it, I remember you, what you went through, and I carry on. You took on one of life’s hardest lessons, facing an agonizing disease that took more and more of you each day with grace; this propels me to move forward and embrace this new path. As the year closes, I find part of me unwilling to let go, but with this chapter closing comes new ways of being and new ways of seeing. I learn to slowly let go of what I thought life should look like and welcome falling into the ebb and flow that comes.

By Surita Jhangiani