[foltgee]

By William Gee



The rain was relentless this morning.
Filling the basement with stale, moldy water as it intermixed with boxes of memories never to be recovered.
The joints in her fingers could barely permit the rosary to hang there.
Her knees would not permit her to bend them.
And still she prayed this day.

The boy needed discipline; at least that's what his father said.
A fist through a wall, covered with thick plaster and wallpaper so that no one would ever see.
A smashed up fender, bloody lips and noses, conferences with the principal.
"It'll do him some good," he said. "It'll take the fight out of him. Make him a new man."
The day he went away she prayed.

For three generations they fought, and for three generations they returned with honor.
They had been through Hell and back again. Verdun, Iwo Jima, Saul.
They had returned to create life after they had taken it away in far away lands.
It was the tradition passed down from father to son.
But the father is gone now, and the son has yet to come home.
Today she prays for the father, but mostly she prays for her little boy.

"Blessed Father, forgive me for I have sinned.
I have not loved thee enough, I have not given thee enough.
All I ask of you now is to see that my boy is safe, and will soon be returned to me.
For thirty-two years I have asked for this, and for thirty-two years my prayers have been unanswered.
For this, forgive me, dear Father. For you are wise and know all things.
If it be your will that my boy be taken from me, thy will be done, but please, let me see him one more time before I go.
This I ask through Christ our Lord, Amen."

She is kneeling now, despite the aching in her joints; tears of grief mixed with tears of pain cover her face.
With the effort of ninety years, she stands, places the rosary into the pocket of her bathrobe, and attempts to prepare her breakfast of poached eggs and bacon.
She looks out her window at the falling rain on the street below.
She's afraid that if God calls her home, then there will be no one to greet her boy when he finally returns.
They tell her he's not coming home, they tell her to abandon any hope that one day he will.
But each day she will pray.