Life ends

I'm often confronted with death
The subject
The experience as told by others
Tears, depression, loss.
And I'm effected more deeply than a listener should be.
I read a story by someone I don't know about someone's death I don't know.
I listen to a woman I don't know remind people I don't know about her husbands death I never knew about.
One of my students whom I just met tells me of a family member I never knew and how he died.
How do I react?
Tears, depression, loss.
Sometimes the tears don't come, I just drop whatever is in my hands
Sit in a fetal position
Stand and pace
Pace back
Lean against a wall
Scrunch up my face
My eyebrows tight
My lips pursed.
I'm confused and lost and alone.
How am I to react when I hear of death?
However far or near I am to the experience, I still recognize loss.
The people of Bali require balance in their lives.
When they meet you on the street they ask you two things:
Where are you going?
Are you married?
Knowing humans places in this world is important to my balance.
When someone dies, I'm left unbalanced.
Perhaps I must follow the knowledge of death
With the experience of birth.
Perhaps this will ease the struggle with loss.

I have a cactus

There once was a man with a teetertotter
And an Arizona souvenir he got her...
It's an itty bitty plant:
An inch bigger than an ant.
A cactus: and only once a month it needs water.

She kept it in the box for the car ride
Then set it prominently on the table side.
She saw it when she ate.
He saw it on every date.
But they forgot the monthly water, so it died.