To a man I’ve never known

You were my best friend’s brother. We’ve never met and never will. Not in this world anyway.

Through a random roll of the cosmic dice, you are gone. The laws of physics state that nature abhors a vacuum. Empty spaces must be filled; physics dictates that to be the case.

Your life was extinguished; maybe before its time; maybe in perfect time. No-one can know. The messages people have left in memory of your life speak of a life filled to the brim. Your hours were filled with hunting, hiking, fishing, camping. Family. Work was a side gig to enable what you loved. Work was not your life.

The pages of your book were filled with the things that brought you happiness and peace. Too often it’s the other way and work is all-consuming. The be-all and end-all of existence. Thankfully that was not the case with you.

You filled your pages with things that your family can look back on and smile over. Maybe not now, but someday. They will look at the example you left and realise that the meaning of life was left in the pages of your life.

They don’t understand now. They want more pages for you. Lots more pages. Pages that include them and pages that mean you’re still there. But you’ve gone.

Too much time is spent trading what is irreplaceable for what is replaceable. We trade our time for things. Things are replaceable; time is not.

You spent your time on irreplaceable moments of joy. Like for like; as it should be. That lesson is something those who know you, will take with them. Hopefully they will carry that memory from this day onward. The note to LIVE. Fill your days with what makes your heart sing because there’s no way of knowing how many verses this song called Life has.

Nature abhors a vacuum. You didn’t leave one. You filled every page of your book with no space remaining. Nature cannot move in to fill the space you have left. You left no space for regret and THAT is a life well lived. However short it may have been. You are irreplaceable.

Know that you have left the ultimate gift. A map on how to LIVE.

No-one wants to close the book on someone they love, but you wrote the perfect book. No blank spaces.

Rest in peace, Andre.

Author: MacScottie

I'm a South African-born American who dabbles in writing, photography and cookery. I lived in England for 6 years before moving to America. My first trip to Scotland was in 2003 and it was love at first sight. 4 trips later & I'm now on a quest to find a way back to my soul-home in Scotland. I've picked up favourite foods in each place I've lived so I'm a product of all the places I've been. A sprinkling of this, a dash of that and in an emergency, a generous splash of Scotch! View all posts by MacScottie