Tag: tragedy

Prayers Answered

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The simplest mistakes can have such disastrous consequences.
It’s true that God hears all prayers, but he’s gotten rather sloppy keeping them organized.
Every now and then, someone’s prayer gets answered for a complete stranger.
Maybe you prayed for a cure for your father’s cancer, but you wake up to a brand new bicycle?
That kind of thing.
It’s been happening more and more, which suggests that either God isn’t infallible or that people don’t know what they really want.
I, for one, really like this shiny new bicycle.
Actually, it’s kinda fun to ride to the cemetery with it.

Key Ring

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The super in my building has the most amazing ring of keys.
I swear, it is as big as a hula hoop and has ten thousand keys hanging from it.
No matter what door, cabinet, or padlock he faces, he never searches for more than a second before finding the right key.
“I just know where every key is in the ring,” he says. “Everything has its place.”
He died last week while fixing the sink in 3F.
It was as much a part of him as his nine fingers. I wondered if they would bury him with that thing.

Miss

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So many things to miss:
I want to see the sunshine.
I want to feel the rain on my face.
I want to feel the grass between my toes.
I want to feel the wind between my teeth… breathe in…. breathe out.
I want to climb a tree and hang from a limb, just swinging, rocking back and forth, at any moment my legs could slip, but I know I won’t fall.
I thought I wouldn’t fall.
But I did. And I broke my neck.
It’s been years, but every day, someone tells me I’ll move again.
I want to.

The Clown

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I was ten when I got sick.
Took a while for the doctors to figure out it was cancer.
Almost too long.
Every week, during the treatments, Jacob the Clown came by to do tricks. Silly things, cheering us up, made us forget for a while.
Walking to the bathroom, I saw him in the hall, wiping off his makeup.
I sat down, talked to him.
He told me about his daughter, wife, father…
Now he’s got cancer. But when he still can, he visits the kids ward.
Even in between treatments.
Some flowers for his grave?
Yeah, squirting flowers.

Treasure

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Some say buried among the stones and markers lies mankind’s greatest treasure.
Not gold, not silver, not precious stones.
It’s something we all seek, sometimes even beg for.
We all have it. It’s within us all, so hard to give, and harder to accept.
And hardest of all, even though it is within us, we find it hardest to give to ourselves.
Time and time again, they come here for it.
Rarely do they find it. It can’t be taken.
It may be too late to beg the dead for forgiveness, but it is never too late to forgive yourself.

The Disease

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Sometimes they say they’re with a church, other times they’re a representative from a support group.
They say they know how you feel. They lost someone to cancer, just like you’re losing someone to it.
Things move fast, you’re in too deep, and the next thing you know, you’re sitting in a diner, staring at the photographs. Or a movie clip on an iPod.
Pay up, or everyone sees them.
It’s a cruel setup, a vicious honeypot scam.
“If she sees these,” you say, “it’ll kill her.”
They don’t care. They just want the money.
And insurance doesn’t cover it.

Joe Christ

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It was a great costume idea.
Joe would dress up like Jesus and we’d strap him to a cross on our porch. He’d hand out candy and blessings to all the kids that were brave enough to ask him.
When the big day came, we were a little drunk, so instead of strapping him to the cross at the waist, we went ahead and nailed him to it.
It took us a while to realize that Joe couldn’t hand out candy in that condition.
So, we broke his legs, speared him in the gut, and shoved him behind a rock.

The Same Day

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According to life expectancies, when I was born and my wife was born, we should die at around the same time.
Sure, we have our bad and good habits that add and knock a few years off that number, but pretty much they all balance out.
So, I’m sure it was no surprise to St. Peter when we both showed up at The Pearly Gates side by side.
“I guess you two planned this all along, right?” said St. Peter.
“Hell no,” my wife says, grumbling.
“I didn’t really plan on turning the wrong way down that street,” I said.

Platform

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We were standing on the platform, waiting for the subway.
A lot of people were.
She fell on the tracks right before the train came.
“Oh my God!” someone shouted.
But God didn’t save her.
An off-duty cop came forward. He said he’d been bumped from behind, and he knocked her on to the tracks.
They never found the guy who bumped him from behind.
Because there wasn’t anyone to find.
The cop went on extended leave. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
He didn’t spend the money all at once.
“Don’t be conspicuous,” I said. “And we’ll get away with murder.”

Flowers For A Stranger

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I don’t know why I was in the cemetery at midnight, wandering around with flowers in my hand.
I don’t know any dead people.
None I’d bring flowers for, anyway.
So, I put the flowers on a headstone, said a quick prayer, and went home.
Next day, I read in the paper that there were two murders at the graveyard.
Two old men shot each other after seeing flowers on the grave. Each suspected the other of having an affair with the woman they agreed never to steal from the other.
Even in death.
Isn’t jealousy and petty rivalry wonderful?