Reflections: The Beginning of an Ending

Yesterday, I attend the graduation from Ohio University of my younger daughter. Her older sister, and their mother, my estranged wife, were in from New York City to attend. They did not stay with me, but at the house where the graduating daughter is renting a room from an old high school friend, now a nurse.

This visit and these events have somehow caused me to finally give up all hope of ever having what I need to have in order for my continued existence to have any meaning. What I would need to believe can happen for me to have any purpose in life is a reconciliation with my wife, and our purchase of a family home where I can live the remainder of my days surrounded by those things that I have gathered and valued during my 70+ years, and where the family could get together for holidays and special family occasions such as birthdays. I know that this will never be.

A couple of days ago, I was straightening up the little scraps of scribbled-on note paper residing on the desk that houses my computer and printer. Among those scraps of paper I found one, dated 1/8/18, on which I had penciled, among other things, a poem titled, "My Final Poem?"

It is a sorry confession and I make it again, here, now:

I am smart
and I used to look pretty good.
But I am afraid,
so I always fail.
It is fear of death
that keeps me alive,
and fear of life
that urges me to die.
So I fail. 
And, again, I fail.
I have spoken.

Basta.