You know, I never intended to post this one, but the last few stories I
posted didn't garner a whole lot of feedback, so I think I'll shake things
up a bit.  Flames, protests, vehement denials and demands for an explanation
cheerfully awaited at mistrydder@yahoo.com.

The first few sentences are a quote from 'A More Permanent Hell'.
Permission granted to archive anywhere that gives me credit.  Thanks to
April for her kind words and encouragement.

Good-byes (1/1)

     "'They say the ages of man are denial, awareness, and acceptance.  A
young man believes he will live forever.   A middle-aged man knows he will
not, and an old man is ready.'  But why?  Why should an old man be any more
ready to die than a child?  Allow me to offer an explanation.

     "A child's life is one long series of 'hello's, of learning and growing
and discovering.  Each  new day is a joy, the chance to meet someone or
learn something new.  There is no doubt, no fear, no hesitation.  Life is
lived every second to its fullest, with the naive trust that all is
permanence.  Things may die or go away, but these are things that are
unimportant to a child-- they didn't really know them in the first place.
The first time a child must say 'good-bye' to something it truly loves,
there is an irrevocable loss-- a precious, damning innocence that can never,
should never, be reclaimed.

     "But youth is young, and shreds of that innocence yet hang on, and life
is still a voyage of discovery.  The child learns that for every 'hello',
there will always be a 'good-bye'.  It is more cautious about who and what
it loves, but the heart is not yet closed.

     "Time passes.  Lives are built.  Love matures.  There is a period of
near silence when neither greetings nor farewells are exchanged in great
quantities, though they are there, and each new pain adds a scar to a
wearying heart.  The aging man closes himself off, unwilling to pay the
price of pain even for the joy of new love.

     "The 'good-bye's come thicker now, as body ages and mind dims.
Precious friends take their leave, cherished ideals are cast aside, and that
which was once indomitable now sits crumbling.  The man sees a world that is
cold and lonely, and worse, transient.  And in the heart that aches with the
pain of a thousand 'good-bye's that will never completely die, he perceives
that the only thing that is truly permanent is sorrow.

     "Is it any wonder that the aged accept, even celebrate, the fact that
they, too, must part this all-too mortal world?  Can death, in all its
uncertainty, hold any horror for those who no longer care for life?"

     LaCroix gently clicked off the portable mic and looked across the roof
he stood upon, at the city spread at his feet, and beyond to the rosy
horizon.  He was nearly 2000 years old, and he had had quite enough of
'good-bye's.

     It was going to be a beautiful sunrise.

The End

"Eternal nights too short,
How quickly melt away,
With all the love we shared once,
Forever in a Day."