I turn the corner and hear the sirens of an alarming ghost machine. An ambulance appears before my eyes and quickly darts to its needed attention. As I watch the red boxed on wheels swing past me, a gust of wind is caught up into the air. Debris gets into my eyes, and I feel a slight momentary pain.
Recovering myself in a gain, I am quickly acquainted with a little boy holding out his small little hands. Palms faced up, ragged clothes dressed, dirty feet exposed, cracked skin bared and a broken spirit on his face. Sadden by his countenance, I choose not ignore this moment. Exchanging glances, my eyes become focused on his pupils dilating. A tear is shedding. It drops on the cemented floor we stand on together.
Out of the peripheral of my left eye, the semblance of a little girl’s shadow approaches closer. Her body aligns next to the boy in standing front of me. She was similary clothed. I see her hand reach out to the boy and their hands snug and tighten. A strange memory returns to the surface of my mind, only temporally.
Splitting for a few seconds, my mind takes me somewhere else…I see a casket for a body wide opened. Moving closer its incumbent, the boy sees his grandmother resting in peace. Free from pain, free from suffering. Free from the medicine she took for many years while laying on her deathbed. Free from the disease that took her life, that she fought so hard against to live.
An empty shell now, he said. A spirit departed, he believed. No more breath. No more consciousness. No more another conversation. Empty shell, he said. Weeping a little from the smile on her face, the boy returns to his seat. Adoring a memory of her in silence, he commemorates it to her as a personal memorial.
Waiting for the grandson, she stands at the fence of his elementary school. The school bell rings. The grandson walks happily out of his classroom and looks in the direction of his grandmother patiently waiting. She had promised to him she’ll be waiting for him. There’s joy on his face. A smile cracks just knowing she’s there. A feeling comes to him in waves. Before she reaches out her hand for the boy, she smiles at him. It’s a feeling he hasn’t felt for a while. He felt safe and secured. He held onto her hand as they walked off talking about activities to do on their afternoon together.
My soul becomes fluid and flows with love. I don’t realize I was momentarily jarred and shaken.
But I catch myself in the moments and reenter reality. Starry-eyed, I tie myself to this encounter, to this boy and this girl, brother and sister, whose hands are held together. I say ‘Jesus, come. We welcome you into this place.’
