Here To Love

[Double Rainbow from lookingtothesky.com]

for Real Toads prompt: "Even love unreturned has its rainbow" by J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)

She was in a deep, end-stage coma,
lying motionless
in her extended care bed.
On the wall were photos
of her life
Before:
her wedding picture,
hopeful eyes,
self-conscious smiles,
children, grand-children,
little girls with happy eyes
looking out of the frames
from that long-gone life.

Now she was here,
in this bed, alone,
and I was sitting with her,
a hospice worker
accompanying
her dying.

I wanted to give her
something,
not just be there,
so I opened
the pages of my book
and read her
some excerpts
from a poem about life,
and love,
and the world,
and death,
a poem about
Everything.

I felt the energy
in the room change,
and knew somehow
that my words
had traveled
into her heart.
My gift had been
received.

When I walked out,
that early summer evening,
there was a rich golden
light on everything,
at that gilded time
the minutes before sunset,
when all is radiance
and, in the sky,
not one,
but TWO rainbows,
arching across
the illumined sky
like prayers,
like an answer
to the question:
why am I here?
And the answer was:
to Love.