PASSION PLAY EXTRACT

Breath

In the war to end all wars, my grandfather was one of those who went out into no-man’s-land, bringing in the dead and wounded.

Death came for him one day, drifting across the trenches with the mustard gas, burning his eyes and blistering his skin. It turned his breath to froth, ate away one whole lung and half the other.

But he cheated death. The doctors gave him a year to live, and when he survived that, they gave him another five, then ten. He breathed fifty more and it was the doctors died.

Slowly, carefully was how he went, a frugal man, conserving strength, rationing every breath.

But he accomplished much, as much as any other man more prodigal with breath. He worked, married, built a house, raised children, saw grandchildren. Doing it all slowly, carefully, measuring every breath.

When he was dying, for no reason that anyone ever understood, my grandfather (not a religious man) said, “My cup runneth over.”

Maybe it was because he had done as much with half a cup as most other men do with two.

© Harris Smart, 2003

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