The circle of life

It was Monday. The machines that marked his breaths, his heart beats, slowed. An unrelieved hum filled the room when his lungs emptied, and his body deflated, motionless. He was no longer. His wife held his lifeless hand, her head upon her bent arm by his side. Nurses who had become friends during his final weeks stood vigil with her. Some cried; some hugged. One put a comforting hand on his wife’s shoulder.

Clearly, it was not with eyes that he saw this. He was dead. And yet, he was there, in the room, hovering, everywhere.

Where was his daughter?

Then, he knew, and in the moment that he knew, he was no longer in the room, but rather, where she was, heavy with child, happy, still ignorant of his passing.

He wondered that he was not elsewhere but gave thanks he could see his baby. If only he could see hers.

Then they were in the hospital and her husband was pale and sickly as he awaited the birth holding her hand and staring at the machine monitoring the baby’s heart, while she sang, loudly, with each contraction.

He watched, waited, till suddenly he felt another presence as incorporeal as his own. And he knew. His grandson.

And as he ceased to be himself and became one with all that is and ever shall be, his grandson took his first breath.