text: Death walked towards me and I turned away. When I turned, I found no place to go. So Death took my hand to lightly look at my face and I could not say no. I walked with Death. If there was light, I do not know. If there was dark, I do not know. All I could see was Death walking in front of me. “Death,” I said. “Are you my Death?” *“I am Death,”* they said. *“But not your death, I am the winter that comes without warning. I am the sun that sets without mourning. I am the leaves that turn yellow come autumn. I am the final note birds ever sing. I am the ending of everything. But, with every winter comes a new spring.”* “You are what takes without forgiveness. You are what stops the clocks that just started ticking. You are not fair and end all beginnings.” Death nodded at me and knew it was true. *“I do not decide when you will go. I am forever and will not stop existing, even to let you grow. Yes, I did end so many things but life does not stop at the ending of things. I can not say that I bring joy or that with me comes a new dawn of summer. But I can say that without me, love and life would suffer.”* I did not understand why I had to leave just yet but I think I was starting to. “Without the ending of things life can not live?” I squeezed their hand a little harder. *“If I did not come then things would stand still. Things have to wait their turn to come but without me they’d be waiting forever, because there are no endings. Yes, I am sad and an ending should not go unnoticed, but when there is an ending there is still an after.”* And Death smiled at me and squeezed my hand back. “What will come after me?” I was shaking with tears. *“You friends and family and every life you touched. They will go on.”* I thought about every person I had ever seen, even those I did not know the name of. Even those I had never seen the face of. “What if they forget me? What if they die before they can remember me?” The fear still lingered. *“You will not be forgotten. The worms under your feet remember your steps. The birds flying over you will know you are gone. All living things shake in my presence. They know when I am here and they know who I guide away. You have left a mark on the world. No life is useless and no life is truly forgotten.”* We walked for an eternity. I wondered how far we were going. “Did I waste my life focusing on death?” Death shook their head and smiled more softly. They told me that they had come to find that all humans feared death at one time. That I was just a person, a mortal who did all I could with my time. That I had not wasted a moment. “And what comes after?” I asked after they finished. *“That is up to you.”* “I think I am ready to go now.” And Death let go of my hand.