In Excelsis Vita

by Catherine Rain

I don't know how I survived the year that I thought life was meaningless, but that I feared more than anything to die. To stop existing: when all I had was life, no more ultimate purpose than the small snippets of enjoyment I could find, how could I face the idea that it would end, that the only thing that mattered would be gone? I only made it through out of weariness. It was years later that I met him, and for the first time felt that life could have a meaning; like me, he valued it above all else, but unlike me, he found this to be joyful and not empty. Upon the infinitely beautiful gift of each breath and sound and eyeblink he laid the further happiness of little pleasures and the greater happiness of love for all that lives. What was once the reason for my fear has become the reason for my peace.

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Catherine Rain is a fiction writer and poet who would very much like to finish an entire publishable work before getting excited and moving on to another, rarely to return. She is also currently a computer programmer and a housemaid for two beautiful cats.