Time gives, time takes.

Sarah, was always was told as a small child, “we have plenty of time.”

She was so used to just having enough time. When your parents are rich, you have all the time in the world.

But as she got older, subjects got harder, the world started falling apart, she was still told, “we have plenty of time.”

She always had plenty of time to fix her mistakes, she was always told there was plenty of time to fix the broken, there was time to fix it all.

Even when her brother had fallen ill.

There was enough time to cure his disease.

But even though Sarah had never doubted in her life that there would be enough time, she now started to wonder if it was a lie.

Because with time, everything was supposed to get better.

But it wasn’t.

Her brother’s condition was getting worse by the hour.

Until there would be no hours left.

And he would go.

Forever.

And no amount of time would ever cure the sadness from Sarah’s heart when that day came.

Sarah walked the cobblestone path to the dock that overlooked the beautiful lake near her home.

She felt like crying, but she was always told there was no need to cry with all this time.

But Sarah no longer felt this way.

Because there will never be enough time for everything. Because if there was enough time, Sarah’s brother would be able to see the world before this illness took over his body, there would be enough time to have his favorite meal for a million more days before he could no longer eat.

Sarah sat on the dock, her feet over hanging on the edge, her bare toes barley grazing the water as they swung back and forth.

Time, Sarah wrote, is just a common thing we don’t factor into our everyday doings. Time, is but a clock ticking on the wall, marking the hours until the end of the day. In one second, around four lives are brought into the world, in one minute we have roughly seventy heartbeats, and in one hour there are about 6,392 deaths.

I feel sorry for those 6,300 some people. What if they never got to say goodbye to their family? What if they never had enough time to say sorry? It makes you wonder.

I know it makes me wonder what my brother would do. If he was told he had enough time. What would he do in the minutes and hours remaining?

I suppose I could ask, but it would be considered rude.

So I spend my time here, by this pier remembering our time as children together.

I hope I have enough time to say goodbye to you. My brother, my best friend.

-Sarah

When Sarah finished up her entry, she looked out across the open water. The sky was starting to change color, and she knew she had to go back to the house soon.

So she stood up, brushed off her skirt, and started to walk toward her house.

It was a big house, for their time. Some may consider it a mansion, but all the grief made it seem so much smaller.

Sarah walked pasted the kitchen, hearing her parents talk about her brother’s disease, but not sharing it with him.

She knew she didn’t have long left, maybe a few days, and that would have to be enough time.

She walked in her brother’s room, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to annunciate clearly that it was okay for Sarah to enter.

”Hello, Charlie,” she whispered.

He gave a week smile.

Sarah went and claimed her spot next to him, taking his small, boney hand in hers. He was only a child, how could he have this little of time?

Sarah noted that he was worse from as he had been this morning.

“I wrote you a story,” she said quietly.

“Let’s hear it,” his voice was weak, just like the rest of his body.

“My brother, even bed-ridden he always will have a kind smile. My dear brother, with eyes so dark and loving, we promised him there would be enough time. So I’m hoping there is enough time for me to say, I love you.

I love you and I hope that will be enough for the time we have. The world has been cruel to you, but it gave me enough time to love you, then let you go. I’m sorry, my brother, but time goes on, and I can’t slow it down though I would move mountains to try.”

Sarah held back tears, looking up at her brother’s kind face, wishing that this wouldn’t be her last time she would get to see it.

“That was beautiful, sister. I’m glad I got the chance to be here to say I love you too.”

Sarah looked down, a tear falling down her cheek.

Her brother’s other hand came up to catch the tear. “Don’t think of this as goodbye, think of this as another hello.”

They smiled at each other, then Sarah’s mother called for her.

“Coming, Mother!,” and with that, Sarah kissed Charlie’s hand and exited the room.

Sarah went to the kitchen where she had last seen her parents.

When Sarah saw her mother, she was sitting at the kitchen table, she had her legs crossed, and hands folded, and under her hands were pieces of paper.

“Sarah, why would you tell your brother such foolish lies?”

“I was only showing him my writings, I didn’t mean any harm.”

“Sarah, of course there is time. Why would you think anything other?”

Sarah eyed her father, he wasn’t a man of many words and a thinker. He was off to the side, hand under his chin, thinking hard.

She took a deep breath, she didn’t want to yell. But it felt necessary now.

”Because mother,” she started, her voice starting to rise.

“There isn’t time.”

“How ever do you mean?”

“Have you noticed that there was never enough time? Have you noticed that if there was enough time we wouldn’t fill out limited hours with things that aren’t necessary? If there was enough time why don’t we do both the unnecessary and everything we want? Because if there was enough time, Charlie should be able to get on a plane and see Amsterdam like he’s always wanted to! If Charlie had enough time, we would be sitting on the dock laughing. But there isn’t enough time, mother! And you just haven’t noticed.”

“Sarah!,” her father yelled.

“What, don’t tell you you can believe time to, because let me tell you, time moves on without people, there isn’t enough time to do everything we want!”

With that, Sarah started running toward the door to the garden, crying.

When she made it to the garden, she ran under the archway that was covered in beautiful vines, and she didn’t stop running until she sat down on the bench.

She wiped away her tears, and sniffled.

Time always brings things, but it takes things too. It takes people, loved ones.

Charlie was glad he at least got the time to enter the world and say “I love you” to her before he left.

Sarah believes he was born to come into her life to show her that time was never what she thought it was. His life was imprinted deep in heart to teach her a lesson. Inside, he will never leave her, but in the real world, he’ll be gone forever.

Awhile later, Sarah’s mother came out to the garden.

“Honey, you are right. And I would like to apologize. Because all my life, I thought there was enough time, but my mother fell ill when I was at a young age, and sadly it is the same illness that is taking your brother. I never wanted you to see the pain of the real world, I always wanted you to know that if you put your beautiful mind to it, there will be enough time.”

Sarah leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder, but she could no longer keep in the tears, nor could her mother.

They held each other and cried, wishing time was really what they thought.

Hours later, the three sad members of the remaining family gathered around Charlie’s bed, telling him it will be okay.

Sarah grabbed her brothers hand, drying her tears so Charlie didn’t need to see her cry in his last breaths, he had never liked her tears.

“It’s okay, Charlie,” she whispered in his ear. “You go. In time I’ll be with you. Okay?”

Charlie smiled weakly, clutching Sarah’s hand over his heart.

“I… love… you,” he whispered.

Then he took his final breath.

Sarah lowered her forehead onto his chest and sobbed.

At the end of the next day, she went out to their dock.

Charlie, Sarah wrote, toes in the water, I saw a butterfly today. It made me think of you. I know you didn’t have enough time, and I’m sorry for that. But I promise I’ll carry out your wish. I’ll go to Amsterdam, I’ll write you every story you’ve ever wanted.

Time, everyone always told us, was always a beautiful thing. They always said there will be plenty of it. In the end that’s true, but they weren’t accounting for the lives. They were counting about the time in the world.

It is so said that there is many billion years left on earth, and out of those billion years, you got eight.

What they didn’t tell us was that in the few years we receive out of the billion, was that we also have to leave the world to live in it. Because a part of life is death.

And as much as I hate to think you are now gone, I know know that:

”There isn’t always enough time for everything.”

So say I love you whenever you get the chance, take the leap that may be the biggest win or biggest mistake of your life.

Because we have to die sometime, some sooner than later. I miss you, Charlie.

But we were never going to make it.