Even the weak can rise to victory.
Even those who give up must not be given up on.
That is the riddle I tell myself daily as I sit, and rot, and wait to die. Someone is out there who believes me. Someone will burst through the gates of this place and announce they have found the antidote to the terminal illness that is my injustice. Someone will show me proof of a God Who will not abandon the innocent to execution.
And that someone... has yet to be found.
For now the blessing is sympathy. Family and friends who still trust me, who believe in me, who promise me that, "It's gonna be okay," and, "For what it's worth, I'm on your side!"
Go to a hospital. Hold the hand of a man dying from cancer. Or AIDS. Tell him you're on his side. Or judge him, even when he tells you his sickness is from second-hand smoke. Or that he was sentenced to death while giving blood by way of an improperly cleaned needle. "He was at the wrong place..."
Pity him.
Or judge him.
Disbelieve his story. Rewrite his life for him in your own mind. Tell him in so many words that he should have used protection. That he should have quit smoking after his first pack, that there never should have been a first pack.
Pity him or judge him.
Support him or disbelieve him.
Either way, I suppose a dying man will one day cease to live.
How many people will hold my hand?
How many people "know" that I killed my wife and that now Justice will kill me?
How many people will refuse to help me until I refuse to help myself?
Even the weak can rise to victory.
Even a dying man is allowed so many days to live.
Even those who give up must not be given up on.
I sit here and think. Think about my wife. Think about how much I loved her--how much I still do. I held her in my arms that night, held her till she died and long after. I think... I think about how I never left her side. I think about how it should have been not her--but me.
And now, all too soon, it will be me. How many people will stay at MY side?
I sit here and choose not to think. I choose not to think about how I went from Husband to Murderer and completely skipped over Robbery Victim, Robbery Victim, and... Robbery Victim. I have been robbed thrice: first when his presence stole my peace. Next when his bullets stole my wife; now while his gun steals my future. I choose not to think...
I don't think.
But I still hurt.
I hurt till I am so dead on the inside I cannot wait to be dead on the outside. I speak the speech of the speechless. I say with my silence, "I am weak and have lost all."
Even the weak can rise to victory.
Even those who give up must not be given up on.
Even a dying man is allowed so many days to live.
So many days... and then I'll rejoin her.
Just a little longer... and this torment will end.
Perhaps there IS a God after all... and perhaps death itself is at once a thief and a deliverer. It robbed me of her face, her beautiful smile, her heavenly warmth, but soon--all too soon--it will deliver me to her again.
Everyone dies: the strong and the weak. The curse of every beginning is its end. Yet life is but an entry into this so-called "human race." If birth marks the beginning for the weak and the strong, death must mark the finishing for the same. All who enter the race must finish. All who begin by taking a breath must breathe their last, and give up the ghost.
Even the weak... can rise to victory.
Let me have my death, then. Let me have my victory.
Even those who give up must not be given up on.
Death will not give up on me. I will not give up on the course of life.
Even a dying man is given so many days to live.
I see my grave, my finish line. My wife is in the crowd, awaiting my arrival. It will probably not be far off now. This is, ironically, my second wind. This is, mysteriously, the answer to my daily riddle.
Some or none may hold my hand and stay at my side. This I do not know. All I know is that when I cross my finish line, I will find myself in her company again, and until others finish their races, that will be enough.

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