Dark Water

We slept in the car, on the road between here and that place of loss. To view empty bodies. Broken. I was empty headed and too young for my own good. Talking stupid came easy to me. But he was wise beyond his years. And kind. He took me to the door of death and stood with me while I peeked in. I didn’t like what I saw. I didn’t know how to process it.

I had seen the cost of this over the years, had lived with the cost, endured it, but I was too young to feel the pull of the waves. I was farther down the stream, where you can imagine waterfalls and oceans, instead of the dark flow from hard rock on the side of a moss covered mountain that no one can stop up.

Later, I saw the water rise, flood the hospital room where my grandmother was drowning in her mortality. It didn’t scare me but it disturbed me. It shook my spirit. And I have seen this wash of mortality again and again since. I have held the hand of people, soaking in it, waiting for the waves to take them under.

It makes me wonder how well I will tread this awful, dark water myself. How will I handle it as it fills my lungs. As I’m reaching for that strong hand on the other side to pull me up to safety.

© LW Publishing 2011