Ready

There was a time when I had no religion. I was too busy. I didn't miss it, or so I said.

Then came the day when I needed a hand to reach out, a hymn to make me glad inside, and a place to go where the silence didn't hurt my heart.

But it was almost too late. There were no pathways of habit to lead me. I sat inside my soul with an ache that grew bigger, and I shrank smaller until I thought one day they would search for me, and I would only be a spot of misery on the floor, a carpet stain of pain.

You think it will never happen to you. Your wife, full of smiles and love, and all that's pleasant and warm and happy in life -- you think she will always be there fiddling with your tie causing you to snap, "Leave me alone, Old Woman."

But one day the doctor asks you to step inside and you do, looking back at her with a puzzled glance, not wanting to hear, or to believe whatever that white-frocked stranger will say. And when she doesn't look up, just sniffles like she did when her sister died, (and she doesn't have any more sisters), and the doctor's tapping his toe, thinking you're too old to walk any faster, and you wish you didn't have to go forward. . .

But, you do, and that stranger with the white doctor's gown, tells what you almost stopped him from saying. "A few months," you hear him whisper, like to say it louder will rob you of time. But the words don't even make sense. He's so young; he must be confused. You were married to Ruby fifty-two years ago, and he tells you she won't be there soon. It isn't possible. You were nineteen when you married her. How can he think that life goes on without your Ruby. . .

He's turning away, business like -- his job is over. He's told you. It isn't his line of work to hear confessions or tears you can't shed, or complaints about life giving you a bum deal.

So you walk away, and you collect your Ruby. And you don't snap when she fiddles with your tie, and you try to hold onto every moment, but when it comes and the house is empty, you dissolve inward like a leftover Halloween pumpkin, all moldy and rotten inside.

The neighbors come and you endure their pity, and there's still that emptiness inside you caving in from the emptiness of your soul.

And that's when you have to see it, that path that shimmers only faintly. But it leads you to the place you need to go -- the place you feel the breath of her -- the sweetness and the love. And for a time you rest inside, and your heart is a little less heavy. You reach out and there's a hand beside you and another on your left, and a hymn of gladness that you cannot sing yet, but the words and the melody wrap you in a veil of hope.

And, there is a silence -- a different kind than in your lonely house. This is more a stillness that soothes, a peacefulness that says that you can endure. And it offers promises --promises that maybe -- you are finally ready to hear.

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