I.
It was perfect in a bittersweet way
The overcast day
The fresh flowers
The waiting
The shades of black and grey
The Padre Nuestro
The father’s chanting
II.
They ushered him through a maze
of flagstones well-polished by the varnish of water
and the heavy footsteps of generations of mourners.
For fifty pesos a stranger sang
as we showered him with rose petals and rain.
Amidst her wailing and her brothers’ silent despair
and the cement mixed and laid thick to immortalise him,
the sky stops crying and its blue eyes blink
and I, for a moment, stare into eternity,
into sorrow, into loss, into hope.
Avenues upon avenues of memories
in this city of the departed;
yards and yards of carnations
doing their best to defy time -
but who can resist?
Grief made her embrace linger, made us angels
without wings, and stranded on earth,
but angels nonetheless.
III.
Another Padre Nuestro
Another sigh
Another moment without him
The first of too many.
I have a friend who used to say that there's no such thing as luck, only statistics.
It's all just a matter of chance and probability. What we're really saying when we say something that happened was bad luck is that the improbable (but not impossible) negative outcome happened. What we're really saying when we wish someone good luck is that we hope probabilities work in their favour.
Then there are those moments when you really see how the stars have aligned. Yes, it's still probability at play - but I don't believe statistics preclude God's involvement; indeed I believe God can work with probabilities and against them.
B, one of our clients, was diagnosed with cancer and given a 60-70% of responding to treatment and a 40% chance overall of recovering. Hospital A doesn't generally provide chemotherapy. They were going to send B home to free up a bed, and put her on the three-month waiting list at another hospital. It's Monday.