There is no darkness, without light.

I'm a big fan of light.

Being a filmmaker, I know how vital it is to setting a mood. And setting a mood is so very vital to storytelling.

I was laying in my guest room bed, drinking a glass of wine, smoking a cigarette, staring at the dim rope light that encircles my studio while listening to Steve Roach. Knowing how lighting and sound can manipulate an audience, I often allow it to manipulate me.

This time it made me realize something I had never considered before.

I looked about the room and realized that every once in a while, a single bulb in the rope light has burned out. And seeing this, it made me think that I had never considered that individual light.

It's no mystery that this instantly became a metaphor.

As we move through life, we collect more and more bright bulbs in our rope light. And though the entire length will always provide proficient light, we never consider the individual bulbs until they have dimmed. And no matter what sort if impact in our lives they have provided, be it small or large, they all become painfully missed once looking at the entire string.

There is no replacing them.

But it is at these moments that we thank them for the light they once gave, and we thoroughly appreciate the lights that continue to burn.

Without those that continue to burn, we would forget the one's that have burned away.

-Darrell C. Hazelrig