I can see from my window my neighbor walking back and forth, into the laundry room, from the trash can to his house, nothing abnormal about his gait or demeanor, except what I know what he is doing.
He is going through their-now just his-possessions.
His wife just passed.
And here it is, the slow days after were the leaves still blow and the sun still rises and falls and he still takes out the trash as before but now it is trash for one or things of her's he will no longer need. And he washes the sheets that hold her smell, and soon it will fade because she will not lay there again.
You would never know, but I know.
And I think about death, how it has skirted my life and never seemingly touched the inner circle of those closest to me. I have never lost someone that I have known deeply. I knew my neighbor, but the comfort in the fact that she is rejoicing with the Lord right now settles the matter in my mind and I can move on.
But his bedside is empty and his routine of visiting her in the hospital has ceased and he will walk home at five o clock every night without holding her hand anymore.
Yet the leaves still blow and the sun still rises and falls and we all still wake,eat, live and move.
Rachel Flores
Archive for October 2011
