The cool air had drifted in

Finally

I walked back to the house casually

I turned the corner and for some reason I looked back

I saw something that could spark a panic attack

A man in a tie and a woman in a suit

Wheeling a clandestine metal stretcher through the chute

Down the wheelchair ramp

In front of a two-story brick house

The air turned damp

A velveteen maroon blanket lay atop the stretcher

I could see an outline just underneath

I didn’t suspect her

It became hard to breathe

I saw him – the husband – sitting on the stoop

I wondered if he knew

Was his mind still in Vietnam

The two people in business attire opened the doors of an austere white van

They didn’t say a word, they just stuck to the plan

Lifted that stretcher up, slid the body in, closed the doors, went to the sides and hopped in

They drove away

I saw several other cars come and go from the house that day

The old man sat on his stoop

Did the scene take him back

The man had lost so much

With kids and great grandchildren all around him he was still out of touch

I could feel the same hole, an emptiness

But I knew in some ways his was different

He didn’t move from that stoop

The next day I saw that white van outside again

The metal stretcher, the blanket, the people in dress clothes

I inched a little closer to the white van and could see its tires wearing thin

The man on the stoop had disappeared

Does anybody else know

It’s just as I feared

No obituary for anyone to read

It’s the third time I’ve seen that van in my neighborhood this week

I thought about when Jesus wept

How interesting that a king would cry

How incredible that something sinister crept into my area of the woods

Why does everything have to die

Sooner or later that stretcher will carry each of us out

Will death claim its goods

There must be something better

Than spending eternity supine on a metal stretcher or in a tomb, a grave

Just a thought: maybe that king spoken about made a way

For something better