What we all have in common is our mortality. No one lives forever. And since this is the case, we feel a certain amount of nonchalance when there should be none.

We all thought Anthony Bourdain should not have died, but he did anyway. I didn’t think my little girl should have gotten cancer, either.

Read this next sentence carefully, please.

There is no way out.

It may seem like there is, but sorrow is built into each human life if it goes on long enough.

I have had more than my share but suicide was never an option for me.

But I do not judge people for whom it is. I mourn for them.

I mourn for my little girl and my late husband, both of which were gone too soon.

It is summer and I feel like winter in the midst of it. We must bring the opposites together and remember one while experiencing the other.

Albert Camus wrote: “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”

This is how we remember our lost loved ones. That having summer, we must suffer winter, too. The opposites are inextricably paired. No one rises above this law.

The heart breaks again and again. Like waves on the beach, the heart rolls on.

Bourdain’s death was a tsunami that left us angry at his sudden departure. Didn’t he know how much we loved him?

Here is another sentence to read carefully. Even if he knew how much he was loved, it wasn’t enough to keep him here.

Judgement is not an issue. Let us, as mortals, bow our heads before the absolute law of love, for there is no other.

Love is the great and last healer for us all, but it is the higher love that includes the opposites.

Anthony, we hardly knew ye, as the old phrase goes. We did know the joy you brought and that will feed us in your absence. For now, that is enough.

Vicki Woodyard