Losing sleep.

Some tell me I push too hard, too much, too often. Remember to relax and re-charge, they tell me. Mother, husband, friend, acquaintance. There are many voices in my life that remind me to do this. To stop pushing and striving and demanding and doing, and learn to wait. To give things time, and let them take their own time.

And still there is a whisper beneath them more insistent that will not be stopped. It comes to me at night when jagged bits of un-reasoned life poke me awake, remind me that there is less time than I think, and more   I must do, and perhaps, if only I do the more, the pieces will fit. And the whisper reminds me always of those who didn't have, who couldn't, who weren't as fortunate, who fell, who died. Like this name I removed from an e-mail list today.

I had only heard it in passing, and looked him up to update his address. Freelance science writer for Scientific American and others. Author of one book. Dead by his own hand at 31 last year.

The easiest thing to take and the hardest to give: Time.