Between The Lines

Two days ago someone knocked me out, cut me open, shoved wires in my spine and duct taped me. Ok. The duct tape might be pushing it. The rest of it is pretty much how it went.

Surgery always brings with it a reflection on one's mortality. Which it just one letter off from morality. In Wikipedia, it even suggests not to mix the two up.

An example of a moral code is the Golden Rule which states that, "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself."

Which makes me wonder if I should knock someone else out, shove wires up their spine, and wrap them in duct tape.

The last few weeks have wrapped me in the wonder of death and life. It happens when a loved one dies. My dearest friend passed. We called each other Siffy. Because she was my sister-friend - or sifter.

Three a.m. Has not been kind. It's when the dark opens up to a mass of thought. When the air changes to a texture that and coats my skin. When mortality comes to life as though a portal has been opened and God has set it free.

A natural wonderment is the curiosity of lives that others lead. It happens at the oddest times. When we are walking down the street and a man walks by with shoulders slumped. His beard unkempt and clothes with stains from the littered street. There is not enough time to look at his shoes, so we study his face. His eyes. As though his aura is tattered by time and there is nothing left to keep him in. His eyes are pooled with a lifetime of passers-by. People just like me, who wonder where he's been. Who he was before his tattered clothes and weathered skin.

A friend once told me about a homeless man she met while waiting for a cab outside a restaurant. She stood with her to-go bag dangling from the crook in her palm. Their eyes met. She swam in his sight. He accepted her gift with God bless and good night. But something made her ask him what brought him to this place. There was something she familiar she could read between the lines upon his face.

He was a lawyer once. Then his wife left him. His world turned upside-down and all the change fell out. He was not a drunk. Just a soul sobered by loss. He entered a world where others understood that mortality was one breath away - and somehow that made life worth living again.

With time, he learned to sit by the curb where his past hailed for cabs and to-go bags cradled his food. When change was only in his pocket and the stain on his clothes was from a fine cut of meat.

So much nowadays makes me ponder this life I have tried so hard to lead - when I'm in bed and a man with change is sleeping on the street. I pray each night that God will help by showing me the way, so there will be light with which to read between the lines on every face.