3.28.2015

Alpha : Omega

After naming the sickness, they wheeled my father into a room with a view. One wall was a window which gave respite from all that hospitals hold, but the view was nothing to speak of, really.  Looking down, one saw a sliver of sidewalk, the busy road beside, and a bird's eye view of the hospital's largest parking lot.  The lot was gray and dull, with cars stacked in tidy rows.  Every so often, we watched a miniature someone, wrapped against the season's first chill, scurry toward a car, climb in, and drive away, and a new someone immediately slip in to fill the empty space.

When the nurse entered with her arms full of tubes, Mom took my place by Dad's side, and I turned to the window, drawn to the parking lot, as if by searching I could find that blessed patch of pavement where, a decade before I was born, they first locked eyes.


4 comments :

Sarah said...

I recently framed my wedding photo & placed on Pete's side his folk's wedding photo & on my side my parent's wedding photo. It's so important to remember that you, your life, your world began as a love story. It should be true for each of us, but it's not. We're the lucky ones. BTW, I love the way you wrote this.

Abigail said...

That's such a good idea, to remember the genesis of what has brought forth so much fruit-- the Love that begins, undergirds, and sustains our flawed human unions.

heidiann(e) said...

i want to leave a comment.
that is all.

love to you.

Deborah Purdy said...

This is beautiful, Abby. So strange, and somehow meant to be, that God brought things full circle in such a clear way.