ASH WEDNESDAY DAYS

"Yesterday I got so old, it made we want to die. Yesterday I got so old, it made we want to cry."
—from "In Between Days"
by The Cure




These are Ash Wednesday days. Mortality is everywhere apparent. Limitation. Death.

The body count of American corpses in Iraq continues to climb. They fill the mobile military hospitals of Baghdad, just as the bodies of dead Iraqi insurgents, innocents, and civilians litter its streets. My grandfather is dying of terminal cancer. My mother is suffering with Parkinson's disease. There is an ever-present, chronic pain in my back and legs that never abates. God is present in that burning.

The burning is always there. My perception of it ebbs and flows. When I am ill, compromised, it makes its presence known. My lower back aches, the rear of my upper thighs burn, as though sciatica. When I feel well, it becomes dull, background noise, white noise. Yet, still present.

The burning informs the deterioration of my mental state, my emotions. The psychological pain fuels the physical discomfort. It circles round and round, until something changes, and then dissipates for a short time. Then, it spirals down again.

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My glasses break. I go to have them repaired and they suggest that I also have my eyes checked. It is only a few months before I need to visit anyway. My vision has further decayed. One “click” up on my left eye; two “clicks” up on my right eye, the weaker of the two, which interests me because I think of the right side of my body as stronger, more dominant. A new prescription: new lenses to compensate for the dependence of my eyes on eyeglasses; new frames since the old ones are irreparably damaged.

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On Ash Wednesday, I knelt next to my wife and daughter at the altar rail of our church's sanctuary. The pastor approached my daughter first. He dipped his finger into the mixture of oil and ashes. He placed his finger on my daughter's forehead, traced the imaged of a cross, and spoke these words: “From dust you have come, and to dust you shall return.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. I felt so small, insignificant. I longed for my own youth, childhood. I saw the death of my daughter marked upon her brow. I saw my own death, my end. Then, a cross of ash was placed upon my own forehead. I fought against the tears, the loss, and yet they came. Next, the wife received the mark: “From dust you have come, and to dust you shall return.”

The universe loomed large. Stars burned, consumed themselves. Galaxies collapsed. God became ever so small, finite. I knew that God was present in the burning of my legs. Only, at that moment, I couldn't feel them.