Beside Still Water
She lay in the nursing home bed,
clean white sheet folded across her chest,
hands intertwined, a gold ring on her bent finger,
delicate paper thin skin taut over bone,
bruises that need not heal now,
pale face so still,
thin white hair brushed back toward the pillow,
so simple a body whose spirit is elsewhere.

We’ve come to say good-bye
to my friend’s grandmother.
I’m only here to comfort,
feeling a little like an intruder on a sacred moment.
I did not know her well, only stories and
the beautiful ripples of her life,
her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren.

We pray. Ceremony seems necessary.
I call awkwardly on God
thanking Him for this good life now finished,
ask Him to welcome His daughter home,
open the doors of eternity for this sweet soul.

We ask the nurse to search for a Bible
then recite the twenty third psalm together-
make her to lie down in green pastures,
beside the still water, restoreth her soul,
goodness and mercy have followed her,
she will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Then our voices blend in Amazing Grace.
Like a final lullaby,
I think we want to sing her into release.

I close my eyes and picture her
walking into the joy we only glimpse here,
joy she has not known
since her husband’s death, she’s felt
unnaturally alone , too old to adjust to change.
Now a familiar hand reaches out for hers.

I look over her head at daffodils in a jar on the bedside table
the only color in the room, a promise of new life
in the gray world of March.

By Maria Brady-Smith

Photo by Mike Smith