I am often told many\nthings. People come to me to confide their secrets, they ask me for help, they\neven come to thank me when all is well. I\u2019ve never minded. People have always\nbeen welcome to come and see me and I like that I get many visitors.\nApparently, I am seen as somewhat of a guardian. I suppose I do tend to watch\nover people, especially during the important moments in their life. Like this\nman, for example, the sleeping man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\nhas been resting here with me for some time now, pale eyelids shutting out his\ngaze, body clad in a black suit. I don\u2019t know his name but I\u2019ve seen him\nbefore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember watching him when he was an infant, having his little head washed. I remember him standing with a woman with red hair and blue eyes. They both said I do<\/em> and then I played music as they skipped merrily under an archway of rice and confetti. Heading towards a car with cans attached to the rear and ribbons stretched over the bonnet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nremember his eyes squeezed shut as he begged for help. One time he asked for a\nhealthy child, another he asked for his money troubles to subside so that he\ncould look after his growing family. Every time he graced me with his presence,\nI started to notice little details that were changed. He was accompanied by his\nwife, then one kid, then two, then three, then four. An odd grey hair, his back\na little hunched. Some months he wore a woolly jumper and some months his shirt\nhad shorter sleeves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His\nwife changed too. Getting paler and pale, and thinner and thinner. Her\nmovements slower and slower. Her hair dropping out strand by strand. She came\nhere to rest too, eventually. I watched her sleeping dressed in a beautiful green\nlace dress. A dusting of makeup and a new wig so that she would look herself\nwhen she woke up. The man told me and the other guests a little about her. The\nwhole time his brown eyes were wet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\ndidn\u2019t see him for a long time after that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then\none day, he came back. His remaining hair almost entirely grey and white, his\neyes and forehead etched with lots and lots of lines, but he was still\nrecognisable as him. He approached me with four others who you might consider\nalmost adults, but to my old eyes, they were still babies. They were getting to\nthe age where one tends to fly the nest and explore the world alone. One week\nthere were only three, then only two, one, then the man alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\nwas the last time I saw him before today. The eldest child came back once. They\nsat quite far at the back and kept their head down in silent prayer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nsuppose this means that later he\u2019ll be taken to rest in my garden. Don\u2019t worry\nchildren, I promise I\u2019ll watch over him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" He has been resting here with me for some time now, pale eyelids shutting out his gaze, body clad in a black suit. I don\u2019t know his name but I\u2019ve seen him before.
\nI remember watching him when he was an infant, having his little head washed. I remember him standing with a woman with red hair and blue eyes. They both said I do and then I played music as they skipped merrily under an archway of rice and confetti.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[9,7,6,8,5],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/pen-sieve.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/cathedral-catholic-christianity-3478.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paJxTw-16","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pen-sieve.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pen-sieve.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pen-sieve.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pen-sieve.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pen-sieve.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pen-sieve.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70,"href":"https:\/\/pen-sieve.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions\/70"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pen-sieve.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pen-sieve.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pen-sieve.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pen-sieve.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}