My phonebook is thinning out- A poem of grief and consolation.

My phonebook is thinning out, not by design but by fate.
The numbers are still there yet calling them is meaningless, for there will be no answer.
You would give anything just to hear that voice one more time.
Sometimes you feel like just giving up, but you know it is disrespectful to those who never gave up and lived a full life.
Then you hear a story of a 10-year-old boy whose death could have been avoided, and in a bizarre way it gives you consolation.
Because you know that those you said goodbye to those weren’t robbed of their prime, and although their life was cut short they still had a life more fruitful than that of many who lived longer.