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Life is languishing
She sits in her room in the dark with her shades taped together. I have come to bear a witness to the news that's good. I recite to her a portion from the Holy Script and she nods in approval. Then leads with the question:
"Why am I still here?"
She tells me her life story. She was born and raised not "to far from here". Went off to college got no degree, but got a marriage decree. Had five kids and made a "happy home". They have all gone off and made lives and littles of their own of which these littles have in turn done the same. She even has a few of those littles' littles' littles that have been fruitful and multiplied. All together they say they are happy. So what more of a home can she make in her feeble age. She told of losing one child to pneumonia at age 4, and 7 grandchildren to various life happenstances. All but her youngest child have died of "natural" causes. As the air lingered the distilled question:
" Why am I still here?"
She goes back even further to her early life where she was the "middle-ish" daughter of a family with 11 kids. Her dad was a farmer and needed some cheap hands and got them boys after seven other tries. She was "number six and seven" being born "seconds after or before" her twin sister. It always depends on who you ask to which was born first. The youngest boy was lost in a ploughing accident somewhere around year '44. Her twin brothers were lost in "damn 'nam". Her oldest brother she lost about a year ago to untreated diabetes. Her twin sister was found dead in a ditch when they were in their 20's. The only sibling she might have left is her oldest sister who moved away to California in her teens who she lost contact with years ago. With an old "Catholic" smile she states "padre" and asks " why must death linger so long outside my door?" And follows up with:
"Why am I still here?"
© cmrios
"Why am I still here?"
She tells me her life story. She was born and raised not "to far from here". Went off to college got no degree, but got a marriage decree. Had five kids and made a "happy home". They have all gone off and made lives and littles of their own of which these littles have in turn done the same. She even has a few of those littles' littles' littles that have been fruitful and multiplied. All together they say they are happy. So what more of a home can she make in her feeble age. She told of losing one child to pneumonia at age 4, and 7 grandchildren to various life happenstances. All but her youngest child have died of "natural" causes. As the air lingered the distilled question:
" Why am I still here?"
She goes back even further to her early life where she was the "middle-ish" daughter of a family with 11 kids. Her dad was a farmer and needed some cheap hands and got them boys after seven other tries. She was "number six and seven" being born "seconds after or before" her twin sister. It always depends on who you ask to which was born first. The youngest boy was lost in a ploughing accident somewhere around year '44. Her twin brothers were lost in "damn 'nam". Her oldest brother she lost about a year ago to untreated diabetes. Her twin sister was found dead in a ditch when they were in their 20's. The only sibling she might have left is her oldest sister who moved away to California in her teens who she lost contact with years ago. With an old "Catholic" smile she states "padre" and asks " why must death linger so long outside my door?" And follows up with:
"Why am I still here?"
© cmrios
