A Good Death
The old lady seemed surprisingly stable the next morning
Given her age, the physiologic insult
And what I had to do to her.
She smiled wanly and reached
Out a soft alabaster hand
Not to reassure me so much
As making sure I was real
That her rapidly spiraling demise
What not just a dream
I saw: it’s not your fault, you did the best you could
In her eyes but probably
Her eyes were just being nice
Then she closed them and drifted off into
A dream where I was an old man, on my deathbed
Surrounded by everyone I loved and those who loved me
(A Venn diagram approximating a near perfect circle, I hope)
And some were telling old stories
While others were saying goodbye
A few leaned in close
And whispered things only
The two of us could ever know
Things got fuzzier and fuzzier
And then quiet and more far away
And then there was a soft blurred lightness
Suffusing through the named and I was floating in the midst
Of a bright white cloud
Shining with all the darkness
I had once stumbled through
And I was surrounded by a deep silence that had been
Hiding in the cacophony of this life all along
Soon I was the cloud itself, then myself again,
A brief flicker of recognition just before
I lost all the words to describe it
Only the cloud could say anything else
It gathered strength and grew dark
Then it rained down hard upon the land
For many weeks, all day and all night
Until one morning the sun burned through
And the infinite sky was once again an unblemished blue
And all the clouds were gone
And in the old lady’s dream
I had died peacefully in my sleep
And this was her way of conveying
Both forgiveness and gratitude
For all I had done to help
On the night she died in her sleep
1 comment:
Beautifully written reflection
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