The Trope of the Thousand Year Lich
In fantasy stories, you hear sometimes of a thousand year lich. A master of the magics of death, who has sustained themselves, and through the years, grown in power beyond what any mortal might achieve.
It doesn't get easy, but it gets easier.
That's what you hear, when a loved one dies. I suppose it's true.
Perhaps the greatest magic, to protect us from death, doesn't protect us from dying, but from the hurt of having those we love die.
The lich, of course, as a necromancer, does not care for the death of others. In this way, they are insulated from death's heartbreak even before their first ritual. Often, a death is required to construct their immortality.
I often think of François de La Rochefoucauld's comment, "We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others." Most recently, in a discussion of pain tolerance. Who has a higher tolerance for pain? I observed that most people endure the pain of the entire world with great poise.
I strive to be someone who cannot endure the misfortunes of others.
I wonder what it would look like, to have the weight of a thousand years of loss. To have all that hurt, and have each one get easier, but have none of them, not a single one, be easy.
I wonder what it might mean, to accumulate that kind of hurt, and keep your love, to not perish yourself, in body or spirit. I think you'd be terribly concerned with helping people. I think you'd be an acute observer of human nature, for that is what hurts us the most, but also the thing that inspires us to love each other. I think you'd grow weary of guiding people, forget pushing them. Perhaps you would only do your best, and point, and suggest that if someone else took the path, then they wouldn't be alone.
I wonder what it might take, to fall in love completely, to lose your heart in someone else, when you've experienced all the agonies of the world twenty times over. I hope I can have the wisdom to be simple and affectionate and kind.