Disclaimer: Not mine
There are few things that last forever, this he knows, and knows well. That fact has been a forever, one of the handful he does know. Sure, there are certain things he'd like to last forever, but he knows that if everything lasted forever... well, that would cause a few problems, to say the least. And he, along with nearly everyone else in his world, wishes for the same forevers.
Peace.
Love.
Life.
Out of those few that ring constantly through his brain, the last is the one he knows will never be forever. It's part of his job to deal with the dead, and the reality that life doesn't last forever is one that's been around since he became a cop. He knew it before, sure, but it never seemed real. His father died, his grandparents had died, famous people, presidents, but it never seemed real. When death became a daily part of life, that's when he knew, and he doubts that normal people, business men and housewives and the like, think death is real either. They're allowed to be disillusioned because it's not really their job to care. When a loved one dies, then it is, but beyond that, all those famous people are now just dead famous people and all the people on the other side of the world are now just dead people on the other side of the world. Death and war are strange enigmas they rather not deal with, and when it comes down to it, they don't have to understand them. They're meant to be enigmas to the ordinary observer.
But he... he's no ordinary observer. He's a veteran of the streets of Baltimore, his beloved Charm City, no matter how many times he denounces it as a horrible part of his past. He loves it, and now when he goes back and walks among the people, his people, down the streets, his streets, he knows the city, his city, cannot go on forever either. It's doomed, just as the city he lives in now, the famed Big Apple, complete with Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty, although now... not even great New York is forever. Those streets, those people are forever marred by the fact that their city is not forever.
That's another of his forevers. War, people who hate, people who enjoy violence. They will always be around, and there are times when he wonders if there are any truly good people left, or if they were ever around to begin with. He looks at his coworkers and knows that truly good people do exist, but they are in such a short supply. Not nearly enough to wage the war those who enjoy violence and live to hate insist upon. There's a reason they have guns, and it isn't because they like having them constantly at their side. It's a matter of necessity, a hand forced by the enemy. The violent, hateful enemy that never disappears.
He wants things to last forever, good things. He wants to be loved eternally, exist in peace for eons into the future, he wants to live forever.
But he knows, each and every time his heart is broken, that love is not forever. He knows, each and every time a police officer is shot, a woman raped, that peace is not forever. He knows, every time he gets a call to a murder scene, that life does not go on forever.
He knows, all these things that should last forever, never do.