The last rays of sunlight were casting shadows on the wall behind the bed. Young Marcus watched, transfixed, as one of the shadows began to look like the face of Jesus.
He reached out towards his father, and was about to touch him to get his attention, but a stern look from his father was enough to remind him that now was not the time for talking. Now was the time for watching life at it's end, the time when he would have to face the undignified end of the life of his grandmother.
She looked different now. Throughout his nine years, he had known her to be sprightly, alive, able to accomplish so much, that at times he thought that she was more like a man than his own father. Indeed it was his grandmother, Pearl, who had broken the two driving horses that took the corn to market. it was her, who only last year, had fixed the barn roof, and had used a ladder that she had made herself from a hickory tree that she had planted on the farm when she was a little girl.
Yet now, with Jesus and the assembled spectators watching over her, she could do no more than grip the white linen sheets and fight for each breath.
It didn't seem fair to Marcus, that everyone, including the preacher had gathered here to watch the end of such a strong woman. They were never there when the hogs had needed feeding, nor when the cows had escaped, and Pearl had to run outside in her nightdress to chase them back to the barn with a broom.No, nobody had been there for Pearl since she lost Leonard, some ten years ago. At first, a trickle of older widowers had called once or twice at the farm, but each one was rejected by Pearl as having no idea about what real farm work entailed.
Father Michaels, the preacher, leaned forward and whispered to mother as she stood next to the bed. Marcus strained to hear what was said, but he couldn't catch the words. Whatever had been said, it caused a single tear to run down mothers face, and she turned slightly away from father Michaels, and looked towards father, as if asking him to help shoulder the burden of that emotion.
But father appeared not to notice. he stared almost directly ahead, as if he was once again on parade in the army. His mouth was tense with concentration, as if fighting the urge to accept his true feelings for that moment.
Marcus could not cry any more.. From the moment that they discovered Pearl in the barn, until the moment that the doctor had left, yesterday morning, he had cried for this moment, the moment that he knew they were all aware was about to happen. yet it seemed strange to him that nobody wanted to be seen crying. It was as if they all had to keep trying to deny their own feelings, just for the sake of embarrassment from the other people who also said that they were friends of his grandmother.
Pearl coughed slightly, a trickle of saliva running down her chin. It was quickly dabbed away by mother, who tried to soothe Pearl, by placing a hand on her shoulder as she did so.
As each breath became more labored, more difficult and more draining, Marcus wanted to leave more and more. This was no way to remember his grandmother, it was as if all of these people had gathered just to witness the pain, the defeat, and the resignation of this strong person.
He looked up again at his father, and was again about to speak, but even though his father did not look back at the boy, his head shook slowly to deny any request that he was about to make.
White hands, hands whiter than they had ever been in her life, bleached further still, by the intense grip upon those linen sheets, accompanied by the harsh rasping sound of her troubled breathing.
Jesus had gone now, Marcus wished that he would return. Perhaps Jesus had abandoned his grandmother to the spirits of the night, perhaps the darkness was arriving to take Pearl with it. Marcus prayed for Jesus, prayed for his grandmother to simply wake, to finally get that one deep breath that she sought and to sit up.. But the labored breathing continued, and Marcus began to pray that this would simply end soon.
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