If I Go Suddenly Poem by cassidy Lovato

If I go suddenly
in a moment that steals the breath from the world,
in a second no one saw coming
I hope you remember this:

Tomorrow was never promised to any of us,
and I never lived as though it was.

What broke me most in life
was watching grief hit without warning
that dizzying freefall
when a voice you just heard
becomes a silence so loud
it rings in your bones.
I've watched people I love
collapse under the weight
of "I didn't get to say goodbye."

But hear me now,
long before any goodbye is needed:
if my light ever goes out without a flicker,
let your heart break softly,
not violently.
Let the shock be gentle.

Don't picture me afraid.
Don't imagine me unfinished.

I never feared death
only the slow unravelling of a mind
that forgets the very people who stitched it together,
or a body that fails the life still burning inside it.
I don't want the fading.
I don't want the dimming.
I don't want the long goodbye.

If I had a choice,
I'd choose a sudden exit
a doorway I don't have to see coming
while I'm still me:
still laughing loudly,
still loving deeply,
still waking each day
with a heart that remembers everyone
who ever held a piece of it.

And if you're reading this someday
because that moment came quietly for me,
let this be your anchor:

My life was full.
Full of warmth,
full of love,
full of tiny moments I never took for granted
the smell of rain on pavement,
the sound of my children's feet on the floor,
the way my husband's hand
fit perfectly around my own.
I lived a thousand joys,
and I would never call that unfinished.

And for those of you
who once lost someone suddenly
and told me I reminded you of them
know this:
I always carried that tenderness,
that resemblance,
as a quiet honor.
If my absence ever mirrors theirs,
let the memory still feel like light.

So cry if you need to.
Grief deserves its place.
But don't let the tragedy swallow you.
Let it remind you that love was real.
That connection mattered.
That nothing was wasted.
That my story didn't end in fear
it ended in fullness.

If I go suddenly,
know this was written long before it mattered:
I was ready,
I was grateful,
and I want you to be at peace.