Vigil

Silence. My mother in her golden yellow sheets on her deathbed, a soft, warm light breathes a golden glow into the room.... She is hollowed and beautiful. The only sound - the ever slower rising and falling of her breath. You watch the sheets. They move, then they don't. They rise again. You wait for the next breath which is a long time coming. Shallow, shallow breaths like a wafer thin cloud passing by a cold, bright moon. My father, my sister, my wife and our great and good friend are sitting around her. My father cries.He holds his head in his hands. No one moves. She will not wake up again, will not whisper "water" to us again, will not ask for ginger ale ice cubes or gatorade or ice cream, or whisper sweet nothings that we cannot make out.She will not play scrabble, tell my father he shouldn't drive, make a sandwich or laugh. That's for us, the living, to do for the dead.The sheets rise softly again...