Lunch Prayer by John Monday

I was standing in line at the counter of Everybody’s Mom, my favorite greasy spoon within walking distance of the church, contemplating whether to have French fries or onion rings with my sandwich. It was lunch time with the normal bustle of people coming from the hospital making their way into and out of the café. I was alone in the line, and only vaguely aware of the people standing around me, when I noticed the couple in front of me move in an unusual way.

The man gently touched the elbow of the woman standing beside him, obviously steadying her, but as soon as he touched her she recoiled in pain. The motion was unusual enough that it pulled my mind away from the great onion ring debate and fully focused me on them. The young man, maybe nineteen or twenty, tenderly said, “Sorry Mom,” and they moved a step closer to the counter. Those were the only words I heard them say, but the pair held my complete attention for the next twenty minutes. The ashen color of the woman’s skin, the ill-fitting hat covering a head with thin splotchy hair, and the close proximity of Florida Hospital’s Cancer Institute were all the clues necessary to understand, at least partially, their situation.

After I ordered I sat at a table across the room from the mother and son, out of hearing but in plain view. I have no idea of their story, but I saw life in the interaction between the two that words could not have communicated with any greater clarity.

Was he a young man seriously contemplating death, perhaps for the first time? Was he considering harsh adolescent words that he wished he had never uttered? Was he thinking of a future without the mother that he thought would never leave?

Was she considering all the things that she wanted to teach him but hadn’t found the time? Was she thinking of his future wife, a women she might never meet? Was she thinking of the grand children she might never know?

I don’t know the specifics of their situation, but the love between them was palpable as were the broken hearts on their sleeves. So I sat there, thankful to be alone, reminded that we are in a world full of beauty and broken hearts, and I prayed.

I prayed for them, and I prayed for me. A prayer that I now extend to you: If you are comfortable and comforted in the heart of Christ, may your heart be broken for those that His heart is broken for, and if your heart is broken and full of fear, may you find comfort and rest in Christ. Amen.

John Monday