The signs are there. My sister is dying before our eyes. From a healthy, beautiful, young woman, she has shrunk into a wizened person, her bones showing beneath her thin skin. All the muscles have been cannibalized by the cancer that has invaded her body.
Day by day she shrivels. Her lovely features are now gaunt, her eyes sunken and dull with pain. Her lovely hair is all gone. It is a matter of time, we know and we wait. Yet when the moment comes and death takes her, and takes us by surprise, it is still a great shock.
Though we are happy that she is released from her prison of pain, we are saddened and pained by her departure. Below is my poem in memory of my sister.
Death Watch
Your lids flutter open, then shut,
Beneath the lids, movements signal
You are aware, though disabled.
All around you, anxiously anticipating your needs,
Wanting to alleviate your discomfort.
Your lids flutter open, you gasp,
Trying to cough up the phlegm,
Thick clotted cream finally expelled, by no means all.
Helpless, we watch you sinking by the hour,
Shrouded in drug fog.
Our pain grows and thickens,
The pregnant silence sliced by your gasps for breath.
Tears well into rivulets running down our cheeks,
As each, torn, wanting you in our midst still,
Yet desiring your release,
Secretly battles with the whys and the why nots;
Needing to understand why,
When a sibling comes to this end.
The unnecessary suffering, the brutality of it all.
A tear slides down your hollow cheek, a final rattle of leave taking.
You are gone but remain cherished in our hearts.
The un-understanding remains;
A niggle still, or rationalized away, by the pastor or the priest.,
Meanwhile with bated breath we wait,
Will it be down the same road?
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