Her Final Hours

I already knew it

Despite the doctors’

Hemming and hawing

At a straight answer

“We’ve done all we can do,”

“It’s up to her body now,”

“To fight the infection...”

-

Well Mom,

You were a fighter all your life

Take no shit

Grit and determination in your eyes

Where there was a will, there was a way

-

And yet,

Here was no way

There is a battle for each of us

One that we can never win

And the ultimate victor is

Death

-

You would never have wanted to live like that

A vegetable on a bed

With the damage that your brain had sustained

You were your mind

Brilliant

And I could never take that away from you

-

So I did what will haunt me

The rest of my life

-

I still see it now,

In the umber of my eyes when I close them to sleep

The machine that breathed for you

Going dark

I hear the final beeps

Of your heart beating

In the silence of my soul

-

And when I sit and think

Of all your wonderful memories

Your final hours sneak up

Like a thief breaking in

Not to rob me

But to plant the weed

That grows in grief

I relive it

In excruciating detail

And every time

I re-let you die