Two months ago I sat by your side
From three (or was it four?) AM until the others were up.
And unlike the early days
When we woke
Before our sleep shift was up,
Before the alarm beeped on,
Before the sun drenched the windows.
But this was Day Eight into Day Nine.
And I sat cocooned next to you
In blankets that smelt of home
Holding your hand.
Your hand which only moved when you were in pain,
Your hand that was still surprisingly cool and soft and constant,
That held my head when I was born,
That pulled me forward when I was too frightened to step,
That cleaned my wounds and reassured me the world was safer than it felt.
Your motherly yet always-chilled hand reached for mine to warm you up
In church,
During walks,
At dinners when I had come home from a thousand miles away
My little furnace hands pressed tight against yours.
On the final day when the sun rose on your body,
Your hand was in mine.
“Look, Mama. The sunrise," I said for the ninth time.
I held on
As I noticed your pulse weakening
And I heard your breaths change shape
And become shallow like pools on the sidewalk after summer rain.
And I knew (in the way I know things for certain) that this was actually going to be the last.
I called the nurse as you gripped again and again
In a pain that I will never know the strength of
But was bad enough for you to fight out of your morphine.
Or maybe it wasn’t pain,
Maybe it was you fighting to be with us just a bit longer,
To squeeze and send coded messages of love through muscle movement.
But I called the nurse.
And upped your dosage.
And you stilled then, until you stilled for good.
Two months ago, I reveled in your hand,
in its life while you were dying.
How your skin was soft and dark,
How your veins pulsed and
looked the same, speckled from the 69 years you earned,
I had decided we could live there forever holding hands.
It wouldn’t be a bad life.
After you went,
I sat shocked still clasping fast to you.
My madrina came and grasped you goodbye.
She shouted surprise at your post-mortem warmth.
But it was only because I had warmed you up
one last time.
© 2021. Published in "Life As It Happens", 2018.