Heaven can wait

An old folding chair sat on the treated pine floating dock. Aluminum framed, plastic armed, nylon strapping; the colors reflected the preferred palettes prevalent during the Carter administration. It still had a faded price tag from Woolworth's on one of the tubular curves of a leg.

She sat there watching the early morning sun chase shadows across the river. The tall pines to either side of her waterfront seemed to reach out and touch the opposite bank; smoke curled up and away from her fingertips.

She would never finish the pack.

She had a sip of Nestea with barely a tremble in her hand. The pain medication had started its uphill labor, but hadn't quite crested the hill. Ice struck the sides of the glass in time with the small shakes. Condensation dripped and ran down to the paper towel she kept wrapped around the sides and bottom. With a keen perception of everything around her, inside her, she savored the running coolness as it made its way down and in.

Her meds no longer quite kept the pain away, but they rounded the sharp edges into a dull throb. So, she took what joy she could, as she could. A cold sip of iced tea and a last pull on that Virginia tobacco, and what was cooled was warmed again.

Subtle reds blended with the oranges and brighter yellows against brown river water. She saw a flash of silver as a fish jumped just outside the reach of a pineshadow, and her eyes followed the ripples as they began to spread and be carried away on the current.

Those ripples still stir, decades later.

Every day, turtles lined up like soldiers to sunbathe on a deadfall just slightly upstream and across the way from her dock. She was happy to see them keeping to their routine; for them, nothing had changed, or would.

For them, this was just one more morning of many.

For her, this was the last day on the banks of that river.

Her husband was sitting on the steel staircase that led down into the water, quietly observing. He didn't notice the turtles. He didn't care for the jumping fish or the game of chase being played by the sun and the tall pines. His rheumy blue eyes, so strong and cold and hard, wept in a constant silent stream.

He watched her watching. He saw her smile through the pain, he saw her shoulders hitch and heave every time she swallowed or breathed too deeply. He heard her breath catch and the ice clink in her shaky grip, and he was content to watch her watching this place she loved so dearly.

He sat, and he wept.

She heard him stifle a sob, and she knew that it was time.

"Help me up, Mack, I think we should go."

With that, the weight of the strong but slightly built man shifted the balance on the floating dock as he moved to support his wife.

He helped her inside so that she could put the final touches on the last bag she would ever need to pack. While she worked, she breathed heavily, and gave him a few final instructions for how things should be. He tried to help her, but she insisted that he let her do what she could.

With dignity, despite the pain that stooped her, she looked around her home once more. Slowly, she walked out on her own power, determined not to spoil that cherished place with the stigma of dying there.

She had spent her last morning in that little piece of Heaven. In two days time, she would trade it in for the real thing.

He never stepped foot on that staircase or floating dock again.