Old Friend

10/28/05

Sarah is lying here

drugged with a tracheotomy in her throat;

machines pump her full of O2, food, antibiotics;

she’s clean, powdered, and catheterized;

she’s dying.

Will it be today, tonight, tomorrow?

Or will a miracle happen,

her turning the corner toward life again,

back to her cozy apartment,

back to loving and holding grandchildren,

back to sitting in her pew or strolling around 2nd Avenue,

back to fussing at Helen or Ilse or making her famous cornbread?

But chances are slim to none for dear Sarah.

Most likely, in the next few days, \

her heart which mysteriously started 74 years ago

will mysteriously stop, never to beat again.

How many heart beats will that be?

Above her bed the TV blares Patrick Fitzgerald  announcing the indictment of Scooter Libby,

a world light years away, oblivious to Sarah.

Music wafts up the stairs from the Activity Center,

a wedding singer crooning,

belting out Belafonte songs, Yellow Bird and Jamaica Farewell, seeming like a serenade for Sarah.

In my mind’s eye I see her young and beautiful again in     Buford, talking Gullah, laughing

strutting and dancing, drinking cheap bourbon and Mogen David wine

On the threshold of her new world.

Not in her wildest dreams could she envision herself

swollen, toothless, incontinent, gasping for her every breath on the threshold of the next world.

God knows dear Sarah believes in that next world,

that Revelation world where…

 he will wipe every tear from their eyes, and

death ,mourning, crying and pain will be no more.

Amen