BETTY AND THE ROSARY.A Poem by Terry CollettA DYING WOMAN AND THE ROSARYYou noticed, when you last saw Betty the evening she was dying, in the curtained off area of the ward, that she was wearing around her neck, the wooden rosary you had given her some months before. Her husband had telephoned you and said she was dying and she wanted to see you. But when you arrived she was already on her way out, her eyes closed, the death rattle taking hold, her husband and her children about her bed. The rosary, a brown wooden cross with a metallic Christ, was still there, the Christ lying where her night gown covered breasts slowly rose and fell. When you’d seen her some months back, in the high street, she said she would learn the prayers of the rosary, and how grateful she was to you for the gift, and she fingered it there and then, her thumb and finger rubbing over the Christ. You’d first met her a year or so before as she sketched the large gardens you visited as a group. Her hand guiding the pencil as the image was translated onto the sketch pad, her eyes scanning what it was she wanted to capture in all its beauty. I like capturing churches, she had said, watercolours and pencil or charcoal as my aids. You remembered words that evening as she lay there dying from cancer, the curtained area dim and silent except for the rattling breath, just Betty and the rosary in the end, and your deep love and the unwanted death. © 2012 Terry Collett |
StatsAuthorTerry CollettUnited KingdomAboutTerry Collett has been writing since 1971 and published on and off since 1972. He has written poems, plays, and short stories. He is married with eight children and eight grandchildren. on January 27t.. more..Writing
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