a father's prayer

Once, I watched a man take his last breath.
* * *
God breathed life into Adam and made him man. Giving life to spirit, vitality awakened in him a sense of mortality; a dependence on God. That same breath, the breath of God, stirs within us our entire earthy existence, although all too often we forget the Divine. We carry on, breathing that lended breath, yet turn no breath back into heaven. We cease to pray. To sing. To shout praise.
* * *
In the meeting the morning before, Kelly told me about him. The CHF. The pneumonia. The DNR. Sensing that his moments in this life were fleeting, she called his children. One by one they arrived at the hospital. She motioned for me to come near the room. "Come. See. You'll learn from this." I inched closer, scared to watch the process unfold. Kelly took my hand and helped me walk into the room. One by one, each child huddled in close near the bed. They whispered memories into his ears. His youngest daughter sat for a long time. She held his hand and stroked his pale cheek. "I love you, Daddy," she said. Over and over and over again. "Never forget." His seemingly sealed-shut eyes opened, then closed. He was gone, the sound of his breath stopping with the fall of his chest; a slow exhale, his final earthly-utterance. There was a supreme sense of the spiritual; something I had never before experienced; something I have not experienced since.
* * *
I suppose it is not until our breath mingles with that of the next life that we really truly begin to turn our breath back towards God. Then, perhaps we pray unceasingly; from breath to breath and the moments in between. We move our lips and utter a Prayer For Life. As if, with the force of our breath, we might pin back the wings of death, if only for a moment more. To linger. Here. Safe. With those who breath free. To remind. To help them remember to turn their faces to the heavens. Not just in the last moments; the fleeting moments. But in all moments. So that when their final breath is uttered, when their chest falls with the last exhale, it will not be an end, or a beginning. But a continuation; from one breath into the next.