The last time I saw Eduardo was at Hoxie’s funeral. It was a sad affair as he was a young man gone too soon. Eduardo had once cried as he told me his testimony. Not Hoxie’s testimony but his own. Hoxie’s I never heard. Now we were sitting together at a funeral and he doesn’t speak. He had left the church about a year ago.
Hoxie, however, died in the church. Not hypothetically, but literally, died in the church. He was teaching Sunday school and collapsed on the floor. Nobody knew CPR. I was backsliding that day or else I would have been there. I heard later that there was nothing anyone could do, not even prayer— it was an aneurism.
There was a lot of guilt mixed in with sorrow that perhaps had I been there that I could have saved Hoxie’s life. I had never saved anyone except a Red Cross CPR mannequin. Good enough to blow into the fake lungs and press down the chest to keep the nonexistent blood flowing. I thought at the time that had I been there, had I been in line physically and spiritually that Hoxie would have lived! The church people told me there was nothing anyone could have done. I was beginning to believe them.
have faith in small things
a snowflake falling on tongue
can quench more than thirst
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dVerse prompt on beginnings — this is the start of a story I am telling.
wordshophop 