Rain on the River

The day began raining, blowing, raining on the banks, next to the river. There was never a reprieve. All day, the murky skies stayed hovering. In 1983, my middle brother was killed on a drilling ship in the South China Sea. For six months, the Houston based company gave us hope that he and others were alive, having been able to evade the typhoon in an escape pod. It was suggested that the crew had landed in Vietnam and imprisoned. Every phone call that was received, left me breathless as I anxiously watched forelorn parents faces. Holidays came, gifts were wrapped and saved, until, divers explored the capsized vessel and found bodies. One of which was my brother.



His voyage home culminated on a tarmac in Mississippi on a script written sweltering, humid summer afternoon. His body was first deployed from the freight cargo bay of a 747. I stood, motionless as the wooden crate was lowered and hurled onto a cart for transport to the waiting hurse. Before the oversea coffin was loaded, I finally acknowledged the truth that he was gone from this life and I would never see his tall statuesque figure again. My closest friend in life was no longer of this Earth. I screamed as I ran my trembling hands over his metal embossed name plate.



I would not scream again, until 1986 when death claimed my beloved Father. He had succumbed to melanoma and sarcoma of the lung which had metastisized to the brain. My Mother and I stood watching him fight, gasping for the last hope at life. My body frozen as the Code Blue Alarm was cancelled with a DNR announcement. I had always hoped that his death would come in loving words and smiling as he slowly drew upon his last. I was angered that his end was violent. This man from humble beginnings remained a humble man throughout and I felt he earned to die graciously and quietly.



His remains joined my brother in the family plot in the family church in rurul Mississippi. Death has taken them all now, another brother and my adored Mother just this past June. She was just shy of her 90th birthday.



My heart is not unaccustomed to days like today when no sun or light warms the solemn, silent grief that abounds. But life does go on, just like the rain on the river. It will head downstream in the fast paced current. Grey skies will be pushed from the heavens and light will escape as it has each time before. Love, laughter and life, will abound and never be, overshadowed by these intermentent moments of rain on the river.