The Dying Light

(The Irrelevant Rant of an Ambiguous Old Man...) Standing in the hallway of the glassed CC unit I was watching the old man as he twitched and turned on the bed.  Two nurses in attendance working feverishly  to adjust his pain medication drip,  while a third one looked on as if to oversee the  procedures.   In the far corner a minister stood  clasping a Bible, his lips slighting moving as he muttered  silent prayers.    His wife sat nearby curled up in the chair with eyes closed as if meditating or trying to keep from crying, The old man whispered something  to his nurse and she turn and asked the minister to leave.  In defiance before leaving the room he shouted, “I pray the prayer of deliverance”.  The third nurse recoiled as if she had been slapped and the blood pressure monitor began to sound its  alarm. 

“You can go in now”  the nurse said as she walked by me  heading towards  her station at the far end of the hall  Dumbfounded I stuttered a response, indicating that I was not there to visit the old man.  “He asked for you by name, she said.  I looked at the old man then I looked back at the nurse to ask his name but she was gone.

The first thing I notice was his eyes, they were dark yet  they seems to be burning like charcoal,  there was a certain sadness that seems to radiate from his eyes, and when  he smiled a tear moisture the corner of his eye. 

“They want to cut me open but I don’t want them to do it”.  He began speaking slowly and weakly at first then he seems to gain strength as he continued.  “The cancer is back and it spreading, but I am at peace.  

I stood by the side of the bed  and held his hand and in time without boundaries he told me a story.   "Promise me you will tell my story", he said. “Tell my brother I forgive him for all of the pain he has caused me”….  "

On December 31, 2013 I will tell his story, "I Never Heard The Blackbird Sing."