Ave, Atque, Vale

Carried through many nations and over many seas,

I arrive, brother, for these wretched funeral rites

so that I might present you with the last tribute of death

and speak in vain to silent ash,

since Fortune has carried you, yourself, away from me.

Alas, poor brother, unfairly taken away from me,

now in the meantime, nevertheless, these things which in the ancient custom of our ancestors

are handed over as a sad tribute to the rites,

receive, dripping with brotherly weeping.

And forever, brother,

Hail and farewell.

Time heals all wounds.  We've all heard it.  I've had so many people tell it to me myself.  And I wonder, do they believe it to be true?  Is it something they tell themselves to feel better?  After all, it IS simply easier to forget those left behind and move on.  But then I would not be true to myself.  Which is one of the most important things The Bard could've written.  To thine own self be true.  But then, Polonius was a fool.  So where lies the truth in these platitudes?  In experience.  I have holes and wounds that have scarred over.  But the scar still remains.  The absence of that limb still remains.  Have I learned to live without it? Of course. But it still is missing. As so many things are missing...