Flickering like candleflame
‘Tween this world and the next—
Tentative and tremulous,
She sets her jaw, then
faces toward the veil.
Father,
As her spirit flees
Her battered broken bleeding
Shell,
Unlock my grip,
Let loose my hold,
And soften my resolve that she
Stay here.
And when the billowing curtains
Finally flutter apart and she steps through,
Let that mellifluous reunion with her
Too-long-departed Fred be as
Sweet as honey.
Let luminous music sing her home,
And bathe in angel light her
Knowing again—now, finally!—the wholeness she once
daily felt
wrapped tightly in his arms.
P.S. So, as a postscript to this poem:
On the 18th of April, my Grandma Homer, who lives in Salt Lake and has always been incredibly healthy (especially for an 80-year-old) was taken suddenly ill. Having never spent more than a night in the hospital (and that for a planned surgery), within in a few days she was not only in the hospital but in the ICU and, as far as I could understand, on the verge of death.
As I intimate in the poem, Grandma has been yearning for her departed husband for a number of years and she had made it clear long ago that, should she fall ill, she did not want extraordinary measures taken to save her life. So, while she was very sick the decision was made to allow what would happen to happen within the very comfortable and safe confines of the hospital and a special care center.
Miraculously, though she seemed on the night I wrote this to be only a whisper away from passing to the other side, I can now report that she has made a wonderful recovery. She still has good days and bad, still has health problems, and is not yet out of the woods, but I spoke with her by phone a few days ago and could hardly believe she was the same woman for whose death I had been steeling myself only days earlier.
I hope she continues to get better and better.
I love her, so much.
–Tyler
Wow Ty.
That’s great.
Make me look like a second grader why don’t'cha!