The Hard Work of Dying

Will you hold my hand when I die?
I asked her when I was very young.
Just beginning to struggle with the notion of death.
Will you hold my hand?

Now, the distance between us ebbs and flows,
Such is dying.
Scarcely does the pendulum swing,
than this deepest act of love grows harder.

Like so many heavy bundles of bundling,
to be carried through deep snow, humid air
and up crags and rocks
like the painful twinning of another’s pain and one’s own release.

Slowly,
slow in the way that thought peels away from dreaming
in time to fall, head aching, into the pillow.
Longer.

Every wound dabbed,
lovingly bandaged,
fretted over,
remembered in sleepless ether,
fretted again and again and again.

The wretchedness of wishing away precious time.
regretting selfish moments like this one.
lifting pen from page to run fretfully

back into the room, it’s droning,
overheated and bright, just to find her
bent over, silent and still.
That second, the blank wonder,
Mommy? She sits up, dazed by pain.

Incredible years pass.
Years and years of dying.
Over and over again,
heart wrenched from the chest
in the agony of loss, to be carefully tucked
back under blouse, for another day.

And one morning, after receiving special discounts
at the checkout in the grocery store,
I look in the rear view mirror, and see the signs.
The hard work of dying takes it’s toll.

It reaches past it’s victim,
death’s icy fingers creep into the pockets of every loved one, robbing each.
Just small things at first, but eventually taking away light,
small bits of optimism, lilting song, and even some of the laughter.

And yet….the discipline…begets jewels, unknown to those
for whom the sacrifice is not possible.
I would not trade my choice. I would live it all again.
With deepest breath, revived, my strength is new.

Here, I must end. For now, the caring is all.
To live every day and hour in such a way
as to mitigate regret and to magnify love. It is a spiritual practice.
To hold her hand now, is the greatest gift.

~DJR