Wake and Rest

A solemn room with lines of chairs facing a casket. It's contents the shell of someone you cared for, someone you knew or hated or someone you loved beyond reason. Lines of people waiting patiently for their turn to talk to the family standing at the front. Some people are stricken, some laughing. Most could be waiting to buy movie tickets, except that when they see people they know, they hug each other. The politics remain. Who speaks to who, who doesn't. He's dead but we aren't. I float on my sea of grief, head above water but little else. I realize it's pathetic. With an ounce more energy I'd go over and upset it all. But no, I don't do it. I just smile. I have been here before. The room, the line, the people waiting. The rules.

Have we really reached that time that was always implied; when our friends and brothers will drop like soldiers in a war we didn't know we were fighting? I could tell myself we are not like Jim in November, he was older (not that much), or that Mike's health was really poor (Jim's seemed fine), or they must have been breaking some health rule (don't we all every day?) Is now the time to pay the piper, or is this just a bump in the road, a fore-shadowing? We are long past the realization of those golden futures we were promised and now have only the relief of retirement and the hopeful joys of grandchildren to work for. So cruel that this too should be taken.

Then let me pray that they were not alone, and if alone that it was quick and mostly painless. I hope there was a light to welcome them and if there was not, that the darkness was quiet and meant only a final peace.