Rainstorms and Ducks

            Attending church without my husband is a funny thing – something that you’re used to doing with people (it used to be my parents and family, then my husband whenever he isn't working) suddenly becomes something solitary and you’re forced to talk with the people around you.  As a closet introvert, this is not really something I look forward to greatly.  But there’s no better place for it than church, so I shouldn’t complain. 

            During Sunday School, I went downstairs to find a seat at our eschatology class.  I found one in the corner of the second row, next to a man (his name escapes me, so we’ll go with John) who was sitting completely by himself.  I remembered him, though we had never spoken before.  His wife had died almost a year ago, and he had lost a bunch of weight after that when he had stopped eating.  Then he’d been put into a nursing home, which under the circumstances seemed like a very good decision. 

            I smiled at him, though I doubted that he would talk to me.  I was surprised. 

            “Nice day,” he commented.  His voice was almost too soft for me to hear, though with some straining I could.  I studied the grey cloth of his suit and the way it hung too large on his thin, meek, elderly frame. 

            I smiled again and nodded. 

            “You cold?” he asked. 

            Goosebumps speckled my skin (the church I attend has some strange aversion to turning on the heat in the fall) and I nodded.  “Yeah, it’s a little chilly.”

            He nodded.  “Your family here?” he asked.

“No,” I said and swallowed a rough lump in my throat.  “They attend somewhere else now.”  This was my first Sunday attending church without my husband or them.  It was emptier than I expected.

“My daughter,” he continued, "she looks like you a little, she attends church somewhere else too.  She likes the music a little more lively than we do here.”

I nodded.  “Although in the evening we have drums here now,” I offered. “Have you heard them yet?”

He shook his head.  “I live at a nursing home now and someone else picks me up.  I hate to ask for a ride twice in one day.”

I nodded in what I hoped was a sympathetic way.  I felt bad for him, but I didn’t really know what to say.

Rain made its way down one of the half windows near the ceiling of the basement.  I watched as a flash of lightening lit up the small square of outdoors that I could see and I listened for thunder.  It was too far away though, or the walls were too thick – I never heard it.

“The home I’m in is different,” he said.

“Yeah?” I asked.

He nodded.  “When I first walked into my room, it looked so small with just enough room for my bed, and a little table with a lamp on it.  But then I saw the window and a big pond outside.  They spread so much corn out there, and there are only a few ducks.  But I thought that might be nice, I could go walk outside and watch the ducks.  I said I’d like that aloud but the lady who was showing me into my room said that I couldn’t do that.”

“No?” I asked.

“Said I would have to make an appointment and see if a nurse could take me.  Come on, I said to her, come on.  I can go out by myself, I won’t try to get away.  But she said no.”

He took his glasses off then and rubbed his eyes.  I couldn’t tell if he was trying to hide that he was crying, or if he was trying not to cry.

“Come on,” he said once more, softly, as if he could just beg me enough and I would change the rules.

I ached inside for him – and I considered finding out where he lived and going there sometime to watch the ducks with him.  I played out the situation in my head, and it gave me momentary happiness.  But then I came to the realization: he wasn’t so much upset that he couldn’t go see the ducks.  It was the fact that his home was a prison and he couldn’t leave just because he felt like it.  It was the fact that the rest of his life would be lived behind the glass, like some museum piece encased before its time - destined only to look out at the rest of the world and watch, rather than live and breathe in it. 

I put my hand in the pocket of my sweater and fingered the change that was lying therein – two nickels and a penny – and tried to find words to say.  I tried to articulate some sort of hope that I could offer him.  But then class began and our attention was taken from one another and directed towards Revelations 13. 

I had a hard time paying attention though, all I could think of was John sitting all alone later that day on his bed, watching the rain run down his window and the ducks nestle one another outside for warmth.