The good Catholic

The man now old

He’s worked hard

All his life

To feed

To shelter 

To clothe

To travel

To enjoy

Little pleasures

A wife

A child or two

A TV

A refrigerator 

A House

A car

He’s made it

His wife
His partner
His soulmate
Sometimes they quarrel
That’s part of the game
They make up
One again
The children grow
Their educated
An engineer
An MBA
They want to fly
Like their peers
They find their work
In foreign lands

They find their parters
And they settle
In foreign lands
In some other part
Of the globe

They do visit

But must go back

They take him there

And his wife

To their foreign land

But it’s not his life

They must return

His wife
His companion
His partner
His soulmate
Whose never
Left his side
Except twice
When his grandchildren
We’re born
Then she’d gone
To those foreign lands
To help her kids
Raise their children

Married
To his house
Is she
Now she’s old too
One day collapsed
In the foreign land
Where she’d gone
To help raise
Her grandchild
I’m not coming he had said
I prefer
My own bed

She died
It was all over
In a couple of hours
The funeral

He’s back home 

His health is failing
Medical bills
The maid
The nurse
The doctor
To be paid

Loneliness calls

He’s healthy still

To go to church

To find peace

To  find friends

The cook is on leave

There’s no food

The tiffin arrives

It’s cheap

It’s dependable

The teeth they fall

Dentures arrive

The food now soft

So can be chewed

The cough

The diabetes

The pressure 
Is worsening

Now insulin

Has it’s say

He needs a prick

Once a day

The rare day comes

Once in a while

When kind souls 

Pay a visit

His old tales 

They hear 

With interest

And with patience 

A light

In the dark are they

Those kind souls

Who by his house

They stray

He counts his pennies

He haggles

With the paperwala

Who recycles

With the laundryman

Who irons

His Sunday clothes

With the fruitwala

Who supplies

His bananas

And apples
He has enough 
He’s insecure
The medical bills
They’re going up
What if there’s
A hospitalisation
The maid
Wants a raise
No he says
I can’t afford
He’s not the same
He was before
A generous soul
Now that he’s retired

He still manages

To go to the banks

Different ones
His money is not
In one place

It’s not for

The statement

All is now

Online

But he prefers

The old way

So he can speak 

To the lady

At the desk

The cashier

The neighbour

Who is

Also at the bank

He now has a walking stick

His knees grumble

When climbing stairs

But no he says

I’m not coming

To your foreign Land

Here I lived

And here shall I die

This house I made

With sweat and tears

It may be old 

But it is mine

There is talk

A swank new tower

With a lift

A couple of years 

And it is yours

They haggle

They bargain

I should get

Double the room

Says one

I want the tenth floor

Says another

Mine should face west

Says the third

I only want

The best builder

Says the fourth

I won’t move

Says the fifth

Our building is still strong

Say the sixth

We can not trust

Say some others

and so it goes

On and on

Nothing moves
No one bothered
Not our business
They all say
We are all
Good people
Not our business
To intervene
Years drag on
The buildings disintegrate

The repairs
Cost a ton
But in fivevyears
The cracks are back
With a vengeance 

The building crumbles

The old man stumbles

He slips 

In the bathroom

Like so many others

The nurses come

Like clockwork

Many a time

They hear his cry

They feed

They clothe

They wash

They clean

The children visit 

Then they’re gone

Those kind souls

Come more often

Bringing him

The Eucharist

They hear him out

They give him hope

They listen to his story

Things get worse

He’s hospitalised

The stretcher carrying

Him down the stairs

They prick they probe

They jab

The beeping

In the ICU

Driving him mad

This is not my home he says

All I want is to go back

The kind souls

They come there too

They hold his hands

In silent prayer

The priest

The Annointing

The Eucharist

Then he’s gone

In peace at last

They carry him

Straight to the morgue

His body frozen

For his children

To come

From foreign lands

Up his house 
One more time

The house he’s made
Now at last
His house is full

His children 

His grandchildren 

His friends

His children’s friends

His neighbours

His neighbour’s children

His relatives

His co-workers

Those who’ve survived 

Those that can

Leave their houses

His nurses too

And then there are

Those kind souls

Who laboured up

Those stairs 

To be with him

To listen

To give him

The Eucharist 

The church pamphlets 

The calander

To give him joy

He didn’t have 
A major vice
Did no harm
To anyone

Never did
He raise his voice
He never missed
His church contribution
He’d attend all
The society meetings
Meekly sat
And got back home
Never spoke up
Others will
He said
I’m not the one
To create trouble
The building new
Will go up
When God wants it to
Never gave alms to a beggar
All fakes they are
He said
God will take care of them

They main the kids to make them beg
He saw the drunk on the street
The municipality will
Take care of him
God will take care of them

The eunuchs
They pester
Better not to
Entertain them
God will take care of them

The orphaned children
Theirs palms open
Their sorrowful eyes
In the heat if they sun
Some kind soul
Will take them
To Mother Theresa’s
God will take care of them

The floods
The famine
The earthquakes
He would give
His widower’s  mite
A fifty
Or a hundred
God will take care of them

He went to church
Every Sunday
Or Saturday evening
His religious obligation fulfilled
Don’t want to get
Into controversy
No involvement more
With the community

A good husband
A good father
A good neighbour
A God fearing man
A good Catholic

It’s time now

For his body

To be taken

To the church

The final descent 

Down the stairs

From the house

That he made

To find lasting peace
And joy

A life well lived