“Everything has an end.” It was not said in a grand auditorium or in a formal farewell ceremony. It was just a quiet line from a friend, who also happened to be my teacher in secondary school , during his retirement family gathering. He said it almost casually, somewhere between thanking people and reminiscing about his years.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dressed in fancy words. But it stayed with me.

I thought about his career , the long years, the challenges, the frustrations, the small victories and the bigger ones, the storms he weathered, and the days he must have wondered if it was all worth it.

I thought about him as a teacher. The early mornings. The long terms. The small frustrations of dealing with students who didn’t care. The joy of seeing those same students surprise him later. The changes in the education system. The politics. The struggles that can grind a person down slowly, over years.

There will be an end for everything. It is a statement that carries both sorrow and joy, and they trade places depending on where you are standing.

If what you have is painful, knowing it will end can give you relief. It can give you a reason to hold on a little longer, because you know the night is not endless. But if what you have is beautiful, imagining its end can feel like a crack in the glass. Like a shadow creeping into a bright room. Some people avoid even speaking of endings, as if the words themselves might bring them closer.

But the truth doesn’t wait for permission. The truth is there will be an end, to everything.

We tend to remember this only when life is hard. When the job is exhausting. When the bills are heavy. When the body is sick. We whisper to ourselves that it will pass. That tomorrow will be lighter. And when the good days come, we quickly forget. We pretend that the laughter will not fade, that the people we love will always be there. And so, when the end finally arrives, as it always does, we are shocked. We call it unfair, even though it was part of the deal from the very beginning.

Not accepting that things will end makes us hold on too tightly, sometimes too selfishly. We pile weight on what we love until it bends under it. We collect moments as if they will last forever, and then feel robbed when they don’t. But the end is not theft, it is the natural closing of the story.

This is why the end matters. It is what gives life its shape, the way the shore gives shape to the sea. Without it, there would be no urgency. No reason to savour the sweetness. No need to gather around tables and look at each other carefully, because we would think there is always more time.

My friend’s words at his retirement were not meant to be heavy. I think they were meant to be freeing. To say: yes, it ends, and that is not a tragedy. It is the reason to live the middle well. To taste it fully, to use it wisely.

Everything has an end. And maybe, that is what makes it beautiful.