Rosary (The)

The Rosary

I sat on the edge of your bed today and watched as you struggled for
breath. With each
ragged inhalation your sternum became obscenely concave, sinking
inwards so as to
almost embrace your spinal column. Your once warm face, with wicked
grin and cheerful
glint to the eye, now lies slack on the pillow. Your pallor is putty
grey and the light has
already left your eyes, going before you to, light your way
beyond.

Wrapped twice around your wrist, and clutched within your hand are a
set of Rosary
beads. They resemble a black ribbon snake though less palpable. They
are made of
polished glass, granite hard and unyielding.

Why pray to a merciless and dispassionate God? Why pray to your God
now when he
allows you to waste?. Twenty six years old, yet you could pass for
sixty.

Take up your Rosary, and run the beads smoothly through your hands.
Finger each one
with reverence,and let it be a marker of achievement and
accomplishment. Instead of
praying to an unlikely virgin, who has, herself preyed upon peoples
gullibility through the
ages, imagine each bead as a reference point in your life. The raising
of your family. The
success of your career. The helping of a neighbour in need. The
pinnacles of your life and
the small deeds and gestures, that have aided your fellow man. Mark
every act of kindness
by pasing a bead through your fingers. Praise every goal attained,
every dream realised.
Each milestone remembered and acknowlaged by a hard shiny bead.

How many of us, in our final hour would be confronted with a few
measly beads on an
almost empty yard of string?

Your body is tired my sweet. It fails you. Your spirit clings
defiantly to the ties that
bind. Yet your muscles waste and your flesh retreats, in beaten
submission from the frame
which used to be the easel you were build on. You always were a
stubborn bugger, last to
leave the party. The bars closed; look, shutters pulled down.
Everybodys gone home.
They are waiting for you, if you'd just look forward instead of trying
to clutch whats
behind.

Look at your Rosary love. It's full. There's no room, on the string
for anymore beads.

It's time to leave. Go Joe. Let go.

Dawn showed her face through the gap in the curtains. Her thin strands
of light chasing
the shadows from the hospital room. Joes hand went slack on the rosary.
They came for
him, and gently he drifted away.