24/08/2026
******One Day, I Will Be Gone******
One day, I will be gone.
The sun will rise without asking for my permission,
and morning will come
as though I had never been here.
Its golden fingers will stretch across the earth,
but I will not see it
from this side of eternity.
Yet on the other side,
perhaps I will feel its warmth—
not the warmth that fades with evening,
but a light that knows no sunset.
The air that graced my lungs
day and night,
in infinite fashion,
will still move through the world.
It will dance upon my nostrils,
but it will not enter.
And I will understand then
how precious a breath was—
something I received freely
until the day I could receive no more.
The voices of my loved ones
will become distant memories.
Their laughter,
the sound that once made my heart rise,
will no longer reach my ears.
For another sound will have overtaken them—
the eternal trumpet,
calling beyond the boundaries of mortal hearing.
And all the dreams I carried,
all the thoughts that crowded my mind,
all the words I planned to speak—
will remain unfinished.
My lips will no longer explain them.
My tongue will no longer give them form.
The stories inside me
will fall silent with me.
The pains of this mortal body
will trouble me no more.
The aching bones,
the tired muscles,
the restless nerves,
the wounds hidden beneath the skin—
none will register in my brain.
No pain will travel
through the twisting reflexes
of this fragile vessel of clay.
For the body that carried me
will finally surrender
the burden of being me.
And what will remain?
Perhaps my name
spoken at a family table.
Perhaps a photograph
slowly fading in an album.
Perhaps a video
where my voice still moves
through the machinery of memory.
Perhaps my grandchildren
will look at my face
and ask,
“Who was he?”
And someone will answer:
“He was here.
He loved.
He struggled.
He dreamed.
He worked.
He gave.
He was once young.
He once held you.”
But even memories have seasons.
The memories I create today
may not survive
my grandchildren's generation.
Time is a great eraser.
It removes names from monuments,
faces from photographs,
voices from living rooms,
and stories from the lips of men.
The hands that fed me,
the hands that built,
the hands that labored
to put food upon my family's table—
one day those hands
will become still.
The trade they mastered
may be forgotten.
The things they knew
may no longer be needed.
And the world will continue.
That is the frightening beauty of mortality:
The world does not stop
because one man has stopped breathing.
The sun still rises.
The rain still falls.
Children still run through the streets.
Markets still open.
People still fall in love.
People still complain about tomorrow.
And somewhere,
someone who never knew my name
will be living a life
that I once thought
would somehow remember me.
So while breath still fills my lungs,
I will not waste it.
While my ears can hear laughter,
I will listen.
While my eyes can see the morning,
I will look.
While my hands can touch the hands of those I love,
I will hold them longer.
While my lips can speak,
I will say the words
that death will one day make impossible:
I love you.
I forgive you.
Thank you.
I am sorry.
You matter to me.
Because one day,
I will be gone.
And the sun will rise.
But that will not be the end.
Beyond this fragile house of clay,
beyond the final breath,
beyond the silence of the grave,
there is another shore—
where the trumpet does not announce an ending
but a beginning,
where pain has forgotten my name,
where tears have lost their language,
where the breath of eternity
does not enter the nostrils
because life itself
has become the breath.
And if that day comes,
then I will understand:
I was never merely passing through life.
I was preparing
for the place
where life does not pass away.
One day, I will be gone.
But my eternity is real,
I will not be lost in the void.
I will only have crossed
from this side of eternity
to the other side. ( Eternity itself is a continuum)
By Shepherd Voice
