Prayers!

On Saturday Babs and I were heading back from her morning rhyme class and we were both listening to songs on our stereo and singing alone when suddenly the sound of a siren pierced the air and all the cars on the road stopped and waited for the EMS vehicle to pass through. I lifted my hands in a prayer and silently prayed for the person inside, when I realized that I had not done it in a long time. Approximately ten years and it made me wonder...

In India, I did it all the time. The reason? Because death is visible. By that, you see dead body procession on the streets, at least one a day. Some have the dead person sitting up, lying down, or covered up but you hear it through the music, see it because of the crowd, and feel it because you are stuck in a traffic jam. You also see death on road sides when a road kill waits to be picked up. And then of course, if you went to college on the same route as me, you would have seen many accidents and the casualties waiting to be picked up. I always said a silent prayer to the victim as well as his family.

I did not have to do that here, I almost never saw the victim, I always only saw the remnants of the accident. I still prayed but not like I did in India, I could never put a face to the person for whom I was praying for. Like the time I stood in the railway station when a couple jumped in front of the train (suicide) and I saw everything splattered everywhere. Or the time, the train I was travelling hit a guy who landed at my window and then saw people picking his remains. Or the time when I saw this guy lying under the bus, dead. All those bothered me so much that it drove me to fervent praying but now I rarely do it because I do not see death as I did before.

Don't ask me why, but this is what I felt and wanted to put it down to words and now that I have realized that I am not saying my prayers to the ones that might need it, I shall start again.

Love
ART