Once I came to understand
that death could come at any moment,
each day began to feel like a gift.
I found myself wanting
to linger in it a little longer,
to receive it,
to savor it.
In the midst of a life lived fiercely,
I hadn’t seen it.
But when I began to sense
how closely death brushes against life,
the world itself seemed to grow beautiful.
Everything did.
A tenderness for life
took root in me.
It was a gift—
it had been all along.