Faith Shaken

I think, oh Jesus if only you had been here none of this would have happened. I am neither Mary nor Martha, nor is my father named Lazarus. His name is Luis. But I can imagine how Martha and Mary must have felt. If only…but Jesus is gone. Gone as in over 2,000 years gone. How can I count on Him when at times I cannot count on the people who share worldly spaces with me? I always say, where there is life here is hope, where there is death there is faith. But there seems to be a scarcity of all of the above, no life, no hope and certainly no faith. What there is, is an abundance of death. My father fights for his life. He fell and shattered his cranium. His brain no longer functions, there appears to be no vision, no hearing, no voice, no memory, he lays there and grimaces, jerks around, looks straight at you without actually seeing. He is as close to a vegetable as they come. A fall that was totally and completely preventable. But I will deal with that anger later. Right now I have to keep the angel of death at bay as he is circling the periphery of life. I am, however, ready to invite him in. I can no longer bear to watch my father suffer. He is attached to life by machines and liquids dripping upside down from bags on hooks. The scent of death is camouflaged by antiseptic washes. The sound of death comes from pings and beeps, a symphony of machinery designed to keep someone tethered to this world much longer than anyone in their right mind would want to. I fight back the bitterest of tears and tell him that it is okay to go, if he is tired and wants to go, he is free to go, we will send him off so that the Others can greet him. By now I am fighting the daily sobs. I wonder how much longer before the doctor throws in the proverbial towel and says “we have done all that we can.” I know, I will tell him. But Jesus never showed up to say “open the tomb.”