As many of you know a dear friend of 40 years died last week from COVID-19. (Wear your damn masks! Wash your Damned hands! And stay home as much as you can!) I wish I did not have so much experience with the death of friends and loved ones. Having that grim specter intrude into your life at a young age leaved emotional trauma that never leaves and forever alters you.

But even with all my experience a death remains an event that sends your emotions spiraling are odd and inconsistent times.

There are moments where the enormity of the event just pushes everything else aside and the realizing that it is all real, it is not some nightmare and that your dear friend is truly gone, pushes all other thoughts aside leaving only the grief and the sorrow.

There are moments when you are reminded of the challenges others will now face, those who depended upon him, whose lives were not only emotional but financially intertwined and you fear and apprehensive on their behalf.

There are the trivial and small concerns that sometimes haunt your thoughts, how to properly and with respect deal with his absence when social events like role play gaming resumes.

And there are the brief times when it is not at the front of your mind and prompts a guilt that stalks your mood.

Life is not just.

Life is not unjust.

Life and Death simply are.