When I Look into your darkening eyes

Your eyes that dim with passing time

I see a world, a broken universe, a place that transcends

All the pain I know you’ve been feeling

The hurt you’ve known without healing

The wretched wreck of your horrid past

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When I look into your eyes, your darkening eyes,

I know a strength resides in the sinews of your soul.

A determination to see this through

A lesser man might surrender,

Embrace the shadows that welcome the weary to the other side,

But your heart is strong. I see you fighting, though your body’s failing,

I see you gripping onto the ones you love,

An impassioned fire that rages in your chest,

Even as it grows harder to fill it with oxygen to keep that fire alive

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When I look into your eyes, your  fading eyes,

As I stay here beside you, as you lay there dying

I am not unaware of your aching, I can keenly see how hard it must be

You could embrace a peaceful end,

But you fight, and though with each breath your grip on this life loosens,

I see your will, iron clad and brandishing courage, waging war on inevitable death

For though you are dying, in this moment I know, you have never been more alive.

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You were made to live. Thank you for choosing to fight, and to struggle until the end.

Finish this chapter strong, do not rob yourself of the precious gift of time,

for it will not exist in the next.

~j.d. schofield