He gave it all he had. He gave it everything. He cannot reach his feet. He gave it everything he's got and it wasn't enough and he can't bare to look. He's doubled over and doubled over. He cannot stand on his feet or even reach his knees. He drops lifeless to the pavement. This was to be his renaissance. This was to be his great awakening. He pictured this moment to be the moment he proved that all of the fight was still to come and he had more left in him to keep fighting.
Instead he cannot lift his chin off of the cement. He is trying and anger and disappointment and hatred, but he cannot move anymore. He is all done. The pain is unbearable. The pain his body feels does not compare to the pain of losing your his last hope. He gave himself to this race. He thought if he could finish this, he could move on and finish anything. There are still miles to go.
But he can not finish. He can just lay on the pavement and weep as he has never wept in his 35 years of life. He could weep like this forever, he thinks. He could give nothing more and the world would still demand more. This is the very moment he willfully and consciously gives up and allows himself to finally accept that his wife has gone. She's gone somewhere that he cannot follow her...at least for now.
He weeps as if he were a baby apart from his mother's arms. He weeps as a man that has nothing. He weeps until his guts wretch and wail with him.
...
Until a hand touches his back. She grabbed his back as she did her son who had passed away long ago. She was a shut-in for so long, but is giving up no longer. Today, she isn't letting anyone fall down. She has failed too many. She cannot carry him. She reaches beneath is chest and struggles to lift him.
Then another hand reaches beneath him. He came looking for a reason to forget that girl who he could never reach. He reached beneath and helps her lift this weary body. They struggled and moan as they try to make this man a man again. He hadn't the strength to assist. He still could not move his arms or legs. The lactic acid had it's way all around. They struggled and fought and shouted to God for help. They weren't giving up.
Then suddenly, without a sound, another hand, and another. A girl who lost her love without knowing she had truly loved him, and a man that forgot that true love doesn't reside in another person, but in God and himself. They all brought a man to his feet and carried him, and themselves, across the finish line. They crossed with grace and tears. They crossed looking to the sky and weeping. They crossed as a family, together in their loss.
It was then that they realized that they were never alone. They were family from the start. God was in them. Despite their pain, there really was something on the other side. On the other side of the valley.
Sing.
Migrate.
Thanks for reading...Z
