Healer of My Soul (from House of Pharisees)

 

The trail led less than a half mile from the road.  He crossed the gorge over the scenic bridge and followed the path on the far side until he reached Falls Pond.  He sat on the moss covered bench at the water’s edge and placed his backpack on the seat beside him.

Abby loved this place.

The solitude of a late spring morning surrounded him.  In the summer, vacationing families will claim the trails.  Children will run to the water’s edge, then quickly move on, bored with the reflections of mountains on the water’s surface.

‘You’re alone?” He heard her voice, though she was not present. “A veteran?” She asked.  A soul scarred by tours into hell.

He unfastened the clasps on the front of his backpack and removed a wooden container.  He surveyed the trails to his left and right.  He did not want to be interrupted.

He closed his eyes and held back a small tear.  She was wounded as he.  She had scarred her arms in the desire to feel pain.  A cutter, few understood her struggle… or even tried.

“I watched my best friend bleed out,” he said to a memory.

She traced a scar on her forearm. “I couldn’t feel anything.”

In his memory he ate the mashed potatoes and turkey offered by the soup kitchen, thankful for a meal and a friend.

Maybe they healed each other, or maybe they allowed God to work through them.  Abby referred to her savior as the Healer of her Soul.  He was glad her soul was healed.  He had prayed that her cancer would be treated the same.

“I let myself fall into His arms,” the memory said.

He placed the wooden container on his lap and opened it.  A plastic bag full of ashes occupied the interior.

“Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.” He stated the refrain as a ritual, having little more to say which wouldn’t uproot the rock in his throat.

“When He welcomes me home, you know where I want to be left.  It’s just ashes.  Please do that for me.”

They’d been here once.  He was falling in love.  She told him she was sick, twenty-five and ravaged with disease.  She said she didn’t fear death and she was glad she’d gone to volunteer at the soup kitchen on that Thanksgiving two years prior.

He opened the bag and studied the ashes.  Jesus touched the fabric of her gentle soul, his new-found faith assured him.  Again, he closed his eyes and remembered her bare arms stretched out across the table.  The scars dominant on her fair skin.

“He healed me.  Let him heal you.”

He checked the trail once again, in both directions, then rose from the bench and approached the pond.

“Lord, you have taken one of your gentle spirits home.  No more suffering.  Hold her tightly in your embrace and grant me a single moment by her side again.”

He took a handful of ashes and threw them out over the surface of the pond while humming a song Abby cherished.