An Audience of Witnesses

I watched her form against the ocean, the place of her ultimate birth.

How is it that one so alive might ever cease to be? How can all the imaginations and desires for a future halt so abruptly? How can one life end and time continue for those remaining?

Will the shadow dancing behind her one day no longer cast over the sand?

I pictured her frame writhing in the throws of passion. I thought of those who had loved her and loved her still. What would be the weight of their loss?

An audience of witnesses looked on with me.
A father’s pleasant memory of her conception.
A mother’s happy memory of her birth and how she suckled for life.
A boy who in his adolescent had been the first to touch her breasts.
Her friends who giggled with her late into the nights at slumber parties.
The young man who first made love to her.
Each of these witnesses would bear immeasurable loss.

The eyes of each looked on in silence.