“Let us pray:

“Our father, we come to you as humble as we know how . . .”

The death itself will probably be, will be, swift and merciful. But she hates that he has suffered so. As she looks at him there, his brow furrowed in concentration over Jimmy’s prayer, she says her own secret prayer:

Dear Jesus,

Lord, I’m a broken-down old woman, and come a day soon and very soon, you gone call me. And that’s all right. Times I sure wish you’d a took me a long, long time ago. But you didn’t; and you’re God. So I ain’t gone tell you your business cause I know what it’s like to be about your business and somebody who don’t know nothing bout your business come along and fixes to tell you what you done wrong, and how to improve your job and so forth. But Lord, I ain’t come to dabble. I ain’t come to meddle. No, Lord. I just come to ask you, my God, cause I know, I do know how it must be for Asa to lay up in that bed and just be helpless and in pain. And Lord, I know he gone be gone soon, and Lord, I know he’s in pain, and Lord, I know that pain’s part of man’s plight since the Fall, but Lord. You know. Oh, yes you do. You know ain’t many folk been kind to me in my day. My Paw, he tried, cause my Maw, she didn’t know how. Many one aunt— but Lord, I ain’ t complaining, but that man, this man . . . I . . . I . . . think right much of him. He done . . . he done a lot for me. Me and my family. He stepped in when my sorry old husband couldn’t and wouldn’t do for us. He brought food when most of the folks would just sit and laugh at me. Laugh. And me with eight, nine head of youngins to feed and clothe and train and the man what give them to me out and gone. Out loafing somewhere. Out drinking. But this man. He’s a good man. And I ain’t, I say, I ain’t gone to ask you not to take him, cause I seen enough of this world to know it’s probably a welcome relief to get out of here. But Lord, if you please to: take his suffering from him and put it on me, Lord. Put it on me. And let him die in peace.

I hope it ain’t much to ask. But it say in the Bible: The prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Well, I might not be righteous, Lord, but I’m plain. I’m honest. And I’m sincere.

“. . . in that world that will have no end, and where every day will be Sunday.

“Amen.”

Amen.