Her face is small and ashen. I cannot help but compare her to her mother, who met me in much the same way not all that long ago. While her mother’s spirit was beautiful and soft, her soul was a mixture of regret and tears. Both were sad to go, and it always pains me to take away the ones that don’t want to leave. Even more heart-wrenchingly, they didn’t want to come, but faced their end with a wistful sigh before folding themselves into my hands. “Take me, I have no other choice,” they said.

For the most part, I try not to remember the ones that I take away from the physical world. Even if I wanted to, there are far too many that pass by each day that are all shades of emotion, ranging from utter joy to complete despair. Emotions that number almost as many there are temperaments known to the sea.

This girl’s life that I came to collect was undeserving of its end. She called me to her, but realized too late the mistake that she had made. Let me make one thing clear: I came to collect her life, but it was she herself that gave it to me. If it was up to me, I would not take any of the souls that come my way.

When I arrived at her house, she was collapsed on the floor of her room, an empty bottle in her hand, and the contents in her stomach. It seems that I had come too soon, because her soul was still emanating heat. There was nothing to do but wait.

It was then that I remembered escorting her mother to the Other Side. Death from disease is not uncommon whatsoever, and on any given day, there are at least a hundred that part in this way. I might not have managed to draw out this particular memory at all, except that the same face that peers anxiously at me now was also there, among the relatives gathered around the hospital bed. While everyone else’s eyes held damp tears and regret, the dead woman’s daughter was the only one to throw herself across the empty body and yell at me to bring her mother back. It’s hard for me to return the hate that those who are left behind fling at me. I cannot understand how they feel; I can only comfort myself by knowing that I will someday be able to reunite the ones that I have separated.

From the floor of her room to the sterile whiteness in a hospital, I stayed with her struggling soul. Another similarity between her and her mother: the cold, white hospital rooms. I always thought it was one of the worst places for people to meet me. I waited in this particular room while they pumped her stomach and her father pleaded with her to stay.

Today, I am reuniting this daughter with her mother, and thereby taking her away from her father. Is it what she wanted, I wonder? Some try to prolong meeting me while others run towards me and beg to be taken with me. I wish I could tell them not to be so hasty. Sooner or later, their time will come and when it does, one can only wish that they had no last wishes left ungranted.