Replaced

Everything in the world around us is inevitably replaced. The countless leaves on the towering trees that fill our landscapes, those trees themselves, clouds, wind, sunshine, bugs, flowers, pathways, EVERYTHING. Including ourselves, we will be replaced, by something else. Our dead mothers, fathers, uncles and aunts, cousins, sons, daughters, even grandchildren, should something happen to them, will be replaced, some how or some way, be it a daughter that is born after a mother's death, or a wife, or a honestly reassuring husband after the death of a father, someone comes along to replace the loss.

But what does one do, when you are replaced alive? When the world around you substitutes your place out? When family, often the pinnacle, or inspiration or solidarity in your life, replaces you; with someone else?

And you never know when it happens. Until, the realization creeps on you, like a vine up your spine. As with each action and inaction, words, and expressions, slowly you are weaned on to the knowledge that you have been replaced. As the reality slowly manifests in front of you, that where you once belonged, now you are an outsider.

A cruel joke of time and tide. They both truly wait for no man, of any stature or standing, of birth or life. Intricacies are replaced with superfluities, and the incidence is replace by its derivative. The sense of welcome and belonging are short lived for many that have endured an exodus. If Moses himself, was not accepted by his people, what more a normal man?

That day, when the revelation dawns, in the midst of the flurry of friends and family, when in all consciousness, you are dislodged, and another takes your place. It is then, the conundrum that is life elicits not an answer, but a question, penned by one of the greatest Poets of all time,

To be, Or Not To be.....