Dear Death,

Well there's no need for formalities I guess, since you just saw me a year ago. You know I still don't even understand why you had to show up at my door so damn early in the morning. Was it just because I was actually in a good state of mind and enjoying myself that you had to come barreling through those front doors to ruin my happiness?

Was it because I was slowly forgetting the inevitable happening?

All I know is that I wasn't truly ready for you to take away the one person who I called my best friend. Someone who I had spent more time with than anyone else. Someone who was always there for me, even if we weren't in the same town.

You had made a presence before, but it was too early for them to leave, and you knew that. You whispered in my ear, as if you were Love hidden behind a mask. I fought you that day, but you told me you would come back when I least expected it.

I won the battle, but you won the war.

You made it hard for me to be around them, watching them slowly deteriorate, with you in the shadows looming around and waiting for one little slip up that would grant you access to take them away from me forever.

First their ability to walk.

Then their memory.

Finally taking them completely.

I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive you for what you've done death. I can't even explain how much pain you've put my entire family through.

But I'm the one writing to you, so the very least you can do is sit there and listen to my words.

Although it was a mere year ago, I was still too young to witness it. To watch their very last breath inhale and exhale as the machines made one, loud, monotone bleep that I will never be able to get out of my head no matter the ways to try to escape it all. I knew they were getting older, yet I always believed that they would live forever. To see them fight for their life. To fight for air, making me wish I could just give them a bucket of my own, you made it harder for them to stay here.

The destruction you cause upon families all over the world--including myself--is just blasphemous and downright wrong. I have seen you many times take away the lives of people who are far too young to leave this world, yet you have no care who you destroy along the way.

Little girls and boys.

Newlyweds.

An Army Vet just trying to get home.

There's no reason for you to do this, yet it's like you don't have an off button. Death, you are truly someone that isn't wanted. Making me feel like I couldn't even move on made my relationships strain. I lost a lot of people in my close circle, because you made it hard to get out of the four walls I call my bedroom. I was in a haze of depression, loneliness, anger, and loss, that no one wanted me around.

You see death, you made me lose myself when I lost them that day. By taking them out of my life, you took a part of me with you, and I know it's the string that you'll keep pulling until it's my own time. The question is, how long is that string? A week? A year?

I don't want you in my life death, in fact I don't ever want to see your face again. That string you started weaving in your arms, I'm cutting loose this very moment. This will be my final letter to you, and I don't want you to respond.

No calls.

No emails.

No letters.

Nothing.

This is my final goodbye to you once and for all death. The fact that I've had the courage to write to you is enough, and you don't even deserve it.

Goodbye Death.

Never yours,

M.