She called me a masterpiece...

     The pain I feel is fresh out the package. It's got that  new car smell to it. A pain I have seen before in many of its facets... but this feels brand new, untouchable, almost unrecognizable. Have I experience death before yes... from a distance... yards.... miles... states... And then death knocked on my front door, put up his feet and stayed a while. The worst house guest I've ever met. I sat and watched Grandma try and catch her breath from a short walks from the bed to the  bathroom and back again. The same woman who was use to carrying loads of laundry up flights of stairs on her 80 year old scoliosis back. A fighter to say the least. and now she heaves heavy breaths with sunken eyes. Stupid face Death (the kid in me says) How dare you sleuth around my house sniffing your next victim? Not her.... Please not her. I hate you Death!
     And still... in the the midst of her final moments she rescues this fallen heart of mine, revives breath into me life as she struggles to catch her own. I rest myself in the seat next to her and hold the straw to he lips to sip her daily soup puree. I wipe her mouth... Give her water... She looks at me and apologizes. While death strokes her salt and pepper hair out of her face... she apologizes.... "I'm sorry you have to take care of me... I know you could be doing something else" I was almost offended... I would want nothing more then to be by her side at that very moment... Memorizing her smell, holding the hands that have dug, prayed,  hit, soothed, cooked, ironed, praised, bled, nestled, nurtured, chastised , and played. I watch death hover like fog and she said to me... "Deidre... you know you are a Masterpiece." and there I melted into a puddle of new found worth. 
     No sooner had death come into my house had he hitched a ride to the hospital where she laid her sweet head. I sat next to her bed  holding her twig-like fingers as she moved restlessly anticipating her end. I kissed her hand, and watched death steal her last breath. Up close and personal, in my face God...He who is life and death, beginning and endings put Grandma to rest. But in her slumber those words ring everlasting in my heart. Words inspired by God..... spoken through His vessel.... used to inspire the hopeless. 


RIP Lurlene Bennett