My Mother's Death In Iii Parts
Part I: My mother’s Voice.
“There’s something not quite right.”
My mother’s doctor said.
The murmur in your heart.
I think we’ll make a start,
to take a look, and book a bed
With some delay on Christmas eve
quite early in the morning,
still hoping very much to join
the day that would be coming,
with precious family, and friends,
who now were fast preparing.
At half past ten they had a call:
“Come now, please, and don’t delay.”
“Come now,” the nurse had said.
“Come now,” that’s all she’d say.
“Come now. Please, come right away.”
When met upon arrival, we sat and were alone,
and then somewhere in the distance
we heard a muffled groan.
“Your mother’s had a stroke, as far as we’re aware.
We're not sure of her survival,
now come this way with me.
Your mother needs you now,
please come, come quick with me.
We meet her strapped upon a bed,
her face is full of terror.
Her voice has gone and there instead the groaning,
from an error.
The tube dislodged some veiny plaque
a blockage at the base of neck.
Her movement gone, her voice a moan,
yet mother’s heart remained quite strong.
My mother’s voice was never finished,
she talked and talked all kinds of stuff
and mostly inconsequential fluff.
But now for three long months she languished,
her voice a groan, a moan of anguish.
And just, perhaps, was that a word?
We never knew quite what we heard.
Yet in the midst of dreadful pain,
though mother’s voice could not be heard
we came each day, each day again,
and told her gently of our Lord
and how He loved her now,
and how we loved her too.
Until one day with blinked consent
she prayed with us, and mercy met.
And then we went, and came again,
and found her crying, though not with pain.
The knee that could not bow, was bent.
Her fight had gone, her time had come
He fast prepared her heavenly home.
Part II: My mother’s breath
Exactly eleven breaths.
One, two, three, four, to seven,
and then to four breaths more.
Shallow breaths, just enough
for chest to rise and fall.
One, two, three, four, to eleven,
and then nothing more.
Breathing stops. And all is still.
And then, to count again.
One, two, three, four, to seven, then to ten.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Will life survive this strain?
A spark ignites, chest heaves at last,
she starts to take breath in.
One, two, three, four,
eleven breaths to lift their frame.
And so we count, and count again,
and count eleven more.
Hours move, but barely, through the night,
and still with faint approaching light:
one, two, three, four, exactly eleven
with each draw.
Between each count a longer ten,
and then, and then, the time has come
not one, not one breath more.
Part III: My mother’s hair.
And in my hand I hold her hair,
all soft and fluffed and white,
as lambswool tuft caught on a fence,
I hold it through the night.
Snipped as she's quietly lying there,
before her final breath,
snipped just before life disappears,
before my mother's death.
This hair lay on her thinning head,
beneath her hiding wig.
That wig now lies close by her bed,
and feels her final breath.
That final breath is now long gone,
but in a box beside a chair,
behind a glass in my front room,
hides snowy tuft of mother's hair.
Yet, I shall see her crowning glory,
and I shall see it soon,
death holds no end to mother’s story
So now, no need to mourn.
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