Did you ever say Yes to one joy?
Oh my friends, then you said Yes to all woe as well.
All things are chained and entwined together,
all things are in love;

If ever you wanted one moment twice, if ever you said:
‘You please me happiness, instant, moment!’
Then you wanted everything to return!

you wanted everything anew,
everything eternal,
everything chained,
entwined together,
everything in love,
on that is how you loved the world,…

Thus Spake Zarathustra by Nietzsche, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale

I lost a friend a few days ago. “Lost” is a imagistic manner of speaking about the death of someone. My world somehow feels less complete.  Yet I know the absence is as it needs to be.

He and I grew up on the same street. Three of us were good friends. We played together daily. We attended the same school, and kept good company through childhood to the cusp of adulthood. I left home at 18 eventually bound for Japan. Another attended engineering school at NC State university. And Vern was drafted into the army to serve in Vietnam.

Life proceeds one day to another day. Circumstances draw our attention to what is immediate. We do not take time to look around, to pause for a look-back to assess the path one has taken.  If we are lucky, when the end is at hand we have a chance to recall some of the good times with old friends.  So, that is what the three of us did in the hospice room.  Our wives were present as well.

Death need not be conceived as a tragedy. Of course any departure has a thread of sadness. Still, every single moment originates from all that came before.  In the room with two of my oldest friends, I remembered some of the good times, and descriptions of what they remembered helped form a mosaic.  Certainly everything, all of it, belongs together.  All things are chained and entwined together.

Nietzsche writes it is possible to approach this world with love.  Embracing our place and time means acknowledging humanities highest achievements as well as the terrible consequences visible on our screens – belong to the same package.

With ‘eyes wide open’ could I say ‘Yes’ to everything all over again?

A good friend who was departing reminded me that I could.  And I would.