This morning a man with an ancient face knocked on my front door. At first I couldn't understand his words, but he was patient with me and eventually I understood that his truck was out of gas and he needed help. I do not know how people know to knock here, but I am glad that they do ... we usually have a few gallons of fuel in the garage.

He knew he was low on fuel at the start of his day, and had planned to go right to the gas station after he finished his work ... yard work for the neighbors across and over a few doors. I do not know them. The slope of their driveway tilted the gas in the bottom of his tank out of reach for a restart ... I told him I knew all about that! I thought to give him the gas in its red container and just let him bring it back by, but I could see that he wished I would walk with him, and I'm glad I did. He was so winded when we reached his truck that he needed my help with the refueling process ... then he needed to talk.

This past April his wife died. I could already see the pain that death can etch into a face. He is ten years older then she was ... he wasn't prepared for her to go first. I stood resting my arms where the window rolled down into the door of his truck, listening as he sat in the cab fumbling with an unlit cigarette and remembering their time together. Two tall cups of coffee in the cup holder and lottery tickets littering the dash ... otherwise tidy as it could be. Slowly, oozing like a deep wound, he told the story of her last night. She had had heart surgery and was doing great on her coumiden ... then he noticed she was listless and hot all the time. She told him the doctor had taken her off the coumiden. He insisted she see a different doctor and she had. She had been back on the prescription two weeks before she suddenly passed. He had been fanning her when he decided to call an ambulance. "Tell them to come with their lights, but no sirens blowing to wake up the neighbors" she whispered to him, "Tell them to bring oxygen ... I can't breathe." He blamed himself. He said he should have been paying better attention. He said her heart pumping that too thick blood had taken her away from him. Big sorrow filled tears followed the trails of his face. Dark brown skin pulled tight over his skull before recessing in deep folds at his cheeks ... he had no teeth ... not a one ... I noticed when I got him to laughing a few times ... and he is a blue eyed man which is sort of unusually for an African-American. He told me about the last few minutes they shared together in the hospital and later, about her funeral when their sons sat on either side of him. I said I didn't disagree with what he had figured out about the hard work of pumping thick blood, but that I respectfully believe there is a time to be born and a time to die ... and that when it comes right down to it, men don't really have much say there. I told him he could torment himself in that place where he wished he might have made a difference ... but surely the love they shared would beg him not to. By then I was wiping my face too. Eventually he told me that they have four children and six grandchildren ... three boys and three girls ... he was looking off into the trees when he said they weren't legal married. They wanted to be. He said they had had 34 years together ... with good times and bad times made better because of being together. He told me her first husband disappeared leaving her with two babies, but no divorce. She never could remarry ... legal. I told him I didn't think he'd have to explain that to God and he said that's what their preacher said when they went to him asking for help about her first marriage. "She got me going to church in the first place," he told me. It made him so very sad that they couldn't make it right before God and man. I told him I thought where there was the kind of love that I could sense they shared, surely God was also there. He was worried that they wouldn't be able to spend time together in heaven because he hadn't figured out how to marry her. We might not be able to find each other over there because we didn't get connected right. He is afraid that God will be angry about that. He said he could bear this a lot easier if he felt like he could just see her again ... someday ... where he longs to be ... over there with her. Seaching for words to ease his anguish, I asked him if he believed we have guardian angels ... he does. "Y'alls guardian angels must know each other ...and if God had to look away because this wasn't a legal marriage (as he fears) then the angels could speak for you both because I know they had to see the love ... but myself, I believe God saw the whole thing and judges a man's heart with grace." He laughed when I said as ornery as he is he probably had to have five guardian angels and everyone of them could give a good account. I asked him if he could ever feel her near and he said he could. I said I didn't know for sure, but I thought you could only feel your loved ones if God gave them special permission to walk across the bridge of love built between here and there. I said, "God knows all about love ... Of that I am certain." I told him I think their love will draw him towards her over there same as it did over here. And I said she wouldn't want him grieving himself to death like he is doing.
Coffee and cigarettes. Nothing tastes good. I remember how that is.
Later, with the sun hot and high, he asked me what my name is and I told him, DeAnn.
"DeAnn, can I tell you one more thing?" he asked.
"Yes sir" I said.
"Don't answer the door when a stranger is knocking on it".
"I already know that" I said.
"Well then why did you open the door?!" He starting laughing again when I smiled and said I was sure I could take him if I had to.
"May I say something to you?" I asked him, and he nodded. "The whites of your eyes are yellow ... that means your liver is not happy with you ... you can drink what ever you need to and smoke those stupid cigarettes if you want to ... too late for them to kill you, I bet ... but you have got to start drinking at least eight cups of water everyday ... you work outside, you should have a cooler of water with you ... and you've got to start eating something". He was laughing again, and mentioned a donut waiting at home for his meal. "If you were my daddy I would say at least 10 glasses of water everyday ... and no sodas, and real food ... man food, not that sugary nonsense! ... Fill up a milk jug and make yourself drink that everyday." He didn't make any promises.

"Thank you for the gas and thank you for listening to me today ... I guess I jus' needed someone to talk to."