Coyote Tracks

Mom at 18

If you’re wondering why there hasn’t been much posting on the blog since October, well, it’s been a really bad month. Mom passed away Wednesday in the Craig hospital from complications related to her end-stage COPD. She was transported there by ambulance last Thursday afternoon and had a pretty rough weekend. She was retaining a lot of CO2 and they just couldn’t get control of it. Then Monday night, the nurse called about 11:30 and told me she had tried to get out of bed by herself and fell, breaking her shoulder. From there, she went downhill fast and by mid-day Wednesday had passed away.

Since we lived right next door to each other, for as many years as I care to remember, I’ve awakened and looked out the kitchen window to see if her light was on. If it was, I knew she had probably not had a good night. Most mornings, before leaving for work, I would go over to see how she was doing. Nearly every time she would answer, “I’m O.K.. You go to work!” and yesterday, was the first time I truly felt that she really was…O.K.

Being a poet, I sometimes seek and embrace the mystical aspects of human existence more fully than would others, and this is no exception.

Thirty years ago, my Dad died in the new Craig hospital. It had just opened. He had sustained a shoulder injury, from which they felt he would not be able to fully recover the use of his arm had he lived. He expired as a result of complications from the injury relating to respiratory distress. The last few days he was on a ventilator and we had to decide as a family to disconnect it all and let him go.

My Mom also died in the new Craig hospital. They just opened it last Thursday. She too had a shoulder injury and expired from respiratory distress complications. The last two days of her life they had her on CPAP and we again had to decide as a family to disconnect it and let her go.

Was that coincidence? I really don’t believe it was.

Are they now together in a better place? I really do believe so.

Here are two poems I wrote for them:

Mother’s Air

I see her fading

beginning day
a fight for breath

ending night
in respite from the struggle

remembering those days
when she sat
beside her mother

the dutiful child
clutching a withered hand

helping by example
the only way
she knew

I shall not speak of dying

for it comes hard
as summer’s beauty
letting go to fall

I too shall better
hold a withered hand

’til her sweet warmth
is bled away
by winter’s harsh abandon

© WFS 2006

Winter Whispers

I have too often now
seen my father’s face
in dreams

standing

where snowbound fields
return their light

beyond the river

a gaunt spirit
reaching
yet unreachable

he speaks

I cannot hear

words fall
like shattered glass
to icy waters

thundering
our loneliness

© WFS 2007