The Price of Compassion
Do I hear the faint whisper of cicadas outside? No, it is too early in the season. The classical station is playing a sad piece of music I cannot quite place. I try to busy myself, but it’s impossible. I am emotionally restless. I close my eyes and think, “Peter, Peter, Peter. Why had God taken you away.? I imagine that last day before death stole you from us. What a beautiful half a day we had, before you went to visit that demanding useless client, that excuse for a human life! Thinking of him, I feel rage rise within me. Your precious life was worth so much more than his. His was worthless. He spent it in and out of jails, more in than out! He achieved nothing. He was just a petty nonentity, a nothing. He taunted you and taunted you during his trial and you said nothing. You were compassionate and kind because you felt sorry for him. Because of him, you suffered a massive heart attack and died in the middle of the street. Because of him, we, your family feel bereft and lost. Because of him… Why could it not have been him instead of being you? I sit in this silent empty house and have one-sided conversations with the various photographs of you around the house. Because of him, you, a loving, a caring, joyous man who loved life so much, are gone. My soul wails, keens, moans, screams with the pain of the loss of you. Because oh him you are gone forever. Because of him, because of him…