The night after she returned from the hospital
the uneven rumbly liquid breathing of one soon
to go under kept me at the surface of thoughts
I couldn’t escape. Clonazepam, Lorazepam,
not even Ambien could pull or sink me. And in the morning,
sure enough, we couldn’t coax or shake her awake
except for a few seconds when someone or thing
wrenched her eyes open and let her answer no
to every question in a scornful voice we’d never heard before
before pulling her down to that rocky undertow.
Through the morning and afternoon every breath,
a grunt, a rattling that soaked the bedclothes and pillows in sweat.
Then at 3 pm, she returned—recognizing her two daughters
speaking her own name and the name of the president.
The hospice nurse put a line through the word “Comatose”
scrawled at the top of her chart and for the next few hours
a light or absence seemed to emanate from her almost
emptied irises. No sentences. No speech as the white
nimbus of hair, thick and lively around her head
nodded yes to sitting up and getting dressed—
to sweet potatoes and Jeopardy! as though part of her
remained in that rheumy underwater place
that took her breath away and wiped out the syntax
of explanation and inquiry, leaving only
no I won’t and certainly not and don’t ever wake me up again.
~Lisa Sewell “The Land of Nod”
Vigil at my mother’s bedside
Where do your dreams take you?
At times you wake in your childhood home of
Rolling wheat fields, boundless days of freedom.
Other naps take you to your student and teaching days
Grammar and drama, speech and essays.
Yesterday you were a young mother again
Juggling babies, farm and your wistful dreams.
Today you looked about your empty nest
Disguised as hospital bed,
Wondering aloud about
Children grown, flown.
You still control through worry
and tell me:
It’s foggy out there
Travel safe through the dark
Call me when you get there
Take time to eat
Sleep sound, ready to wake fresh tomorrow
I dress you as you dressed me
I clean you as you cleaned me
I love you as you loved me
You try my patience as I tried yours.
I wonder if I have the strength to
Mother my mother
For as long as she needs.
When I tell you the truth of where you are
Your brow furrows as it used to do
When I disappointed you~
This cannot be
A bed in a room in a sterile place
Waiting
Waiting for death,
Waiting for heaven,
Waiting for the light
And I tell you:
It’s foggy
Travel safe through the darkness
Eat something, please eat
Sleep sound, ready to wake fresh tomorrow
Call me when you get there.
Advent 2023 theme
…because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
Wake, Awake for Night is Flying
Let the shadows be forsaken,
The time has come for us to waken,
And to the Day our lives entrust.
Search the sky for heaven’s portal:
The clouds shall rain the Light Immortal,
And earth will soon bud forth the Just.
Of one pearl each shining portal,
where, dwelling with the choir immortal,
we gather ’round Your dazzling light.
No eye has seen, no ear
has yet been trained to hear
what joy is ours!
~Philipp Nicolai
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