Holding The Door
Her breath whistled in and heaved out, each time with a rattling moan. Above her rumpled sheets, the curtain billowed in and then out with the breeze.
Poised in the sacred silence, family and friends huddled 'round.
Each afraid to disrupt the last notes of this her final song.
Like droplets and flecks of pure gold, dust particles danced in the light of the window.
My friend's hazel eyes stared fixed on some distant view, far away.
Her hair lay soft on her shoulder, untouched by the aging gray.
Cancer had hastened her crossing by stripping away the shortened years.
Two days had gone by, and no words had passed over those parched, cracking lips, when suddenly she lifted her head and said, "Someone's at the door. Please open it."
We all glanced around at each other, and her daughter then opened the door.
Only the billowing wind passed through the grassy field.
Closing it softly, she turned, "Mom, no one's there. No one at all but the wind."
"Just hold the door," she breathlessly said; "They're coming through."
So the door swung open again.
With a smile, she lifted a hand and her head, then waved "them" into the room.
Then turning to us, she wiggled her fingers, and with one last sigh she departed...there through the open door, onto the billows of wind.
And we all rejoiced that we had remembered...our manners to, "Please hold the door" once again.