February 2 2016

                                            February 2 2016

                  A pale blue-green wall with a golden mirror behind an old hospital bed, clad in blue-striped seersucker sheets and with my grandfather resting on it. Resting is too loose of a word- he is restless, this man, and twitches in discomfort, even while making wry jokes about himself.
   What to say to someone about to head out on a long journey? Everything has been said before, and the echoes seem sad and empty.
      "Do you want to pray with him?"   My beautiful grandmother seems restless too- I don't think she thought death would look like this... like this frail old man, his white hair sticking straight up and his chest, thin through his t-shirt. I didn't either. I've always  been insulated from death; this is the first time it has loomed into my life and I don't know what to do with it. Some things are so vague to me, and others startling in their clarity- This man is going on a long journey, and he's never coming back.
    Everything I wish I had said to him, and everything I wish he had said to me, will have to wait until I too wake to a new Day, a place where time is no longer an enemy, where nothing is false or hurtful or static.
         It seems like his world is getting smaller, so small- the length and breadth of a hospital bed. I know that actually his world is expanding- it is just about to explode outward into Eternity, where everything he got wrong or thought wrong or did wrong will be made right. He will be made whole, and new, with new thoughts and pleasures, no distractions from the One who Answers; the One who Calls.
         There is something a little exciting about it, and I taste it only for a moment as I pray with him. I don't know how aware he is, but I can tell he is being gracious to me. I know he is trying to speak truth at last, trying to bless his children and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.              Thank you God for these last days- may he have a sweet and peaceful end, surrounded by those he loves and those who love him.                                        

             A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.  By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. 
                         John 13: 34-35