Spiritual Resource Services/Prayergear.com

Final Words
 

"Can she hear me? She can, can't she?"

He asked me that several times,

staring at his sister lying still, comatose, machines breathing for her,

pumping her blood.

"Sure she can, hearing is the last sense to go," I answered.

It was very important to him that his sister heard what he has to say...

Words from the heart, words leaking out of the crack in his soul.

words for some reason, he had waited until this time to say.

My thoughts wander to the HIV affected children at a summer program,

especially the one who reached for my hand and quietly uttered,

"Thank you for teaching me how to pray."

They paid attention; attention is powerful energy.

They don't live as though they have forever on this earth.

I don't have to ask myself, "Can they hear me?"

Thoughts take another turn, to the man I was breathing for last week;

someone else was pumping his heart,

Coming, going, coming, going...

We emergency medical workers do not save lives,

we sometimes get to postpone death for another time.

Not this one...

I wondered about his family and the words that might have needed to be

said and be heard among them, feelings to be experienced together.

Too late, as this man's spirit slipped away in the company of us strangers,

I renew my commitment to always pay attention. Life is constantly

speaking to us, through us, around us.

How much do we really hear? Miss?

Our patient could hear me, but I had nothing to say to him.

Then I thought, that is how it should be with whom I care for and love.

I don't ever want to wonder, regretfully, desperately,

"Can he or she hear me?"

Because

I know I have already been heard.

And I have already been listening all the time.

Final words will happily be reminders of what's already been said.

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