Why is death so hard to face? It's the inevitable. One of the only two certainties of life - the other being taxes as they say.

I have the interesting privilege of being able to observe life beginning with my baby niece discovering the world and life ending as I watch my grandparents particularly my grandpa's lives succumb to the effects of disease and age.

Oh the joy my niece brings my family. You should see my parents faces light up and giggle at the way she'll kiss a teddy bear's nose, hold onto my childhood rubber ducky, or mimic the things we do. There's really nothing cuter than watching a toddler lay on the floor with you and rest her face on her elbow propped hand just like you're doing.

The way her eyes light up with a playground in sight or when the Christmas lights are in hand's grasp. A child's wonderment makes you look at the world with thankful eyes and a desire to protect and keep them little as long as possible in our broken world. It also serves to remind that there is wonder and good in this world, it's just we who have forgotten it. Remember.

But as my parents are basking in grandparent-hood, they're also sobered with trying to help my grandparents in old-age. The dichotomy of it all, the pain and the joy, the words are hard to find.

My grandpa's hands who helped to build air force aircraft are shaking to feed himself. His strong legs that carried him across hundreds of golf courses are having trouble listening to his brain tell them to move down the short hallway. His laughing face is stilled with the muscle fatigue of Parkinson's. His eyes don't light up the way they used to.

His muscles are slowly rejecting what they learned at my niece's age, but his mind is still there. He still keeps track of the appointments and bills for him and my grandma whose short term memory is growing fuzzy with the effects of Alzheimers.

Is that good though? My niece doesn't have a strong concept of privacy, independence or dignity yet, but my grandpa does. He's in a position where he's being taken care of in a similar manner as  my niece. Oh the humbling of it all. 

Part of me wants to cry "rage, rage" against it all, but the other part of me is rest, "go gentle." The night is good.*

I don't know for sure what we next see after we take our last breath. I have faith my Father and creator will be waiting as my eyes open for the first time, for the very first time. I pray He'll be there and we can run and dance and laugh in the purest, most complete, perfect version of joy that this frail frame never could have contained in this world. This is my hope, and hope is strong.

I pray my Grandpa will see his Father and they run to the most perfect golf course and just enjoy being together like my Grandpa never enjoyed being with his father in this world. And one day my Grandma will meet them at the end of the 18 holes. Minds and bodies put right, put better than right.

To some this may sound naive or too good to be true. That's fine, you can think that, but I'm more likely to argue it's not true enough. There's completeness and pleasure and joy that I can't imagine.

There's a beginning at the end. And that's written with a weight I believe to my very core.

But that doesn't make this end any easier. That doesn't make their pain and confusion any easier to process. Maybe that's why we're given the joy of a new life too. Life is a balance, a wheel of pain and joy, beginning and ending. Both sets of emotions matter. Recognize the pain and sadness, but remember the joy and goodness.

*Referenced from Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night"