Cancer

I knew the sickness was a lot to bear.

I knew it was eating away at him. I could see his cheeks sinking in, and his hair; well fading like little white dandelions that we blew as kids.

I could see his eyes were weak and sometimes it seemed like it was too hard for him to open them.

I could tell that some days when he attempted to swing his legs out of the bed it was too hard to even comprehend.

I knew his arms were weary from the pricks and that his blood ran dry from all the tests.

I knew that it was hard on his lungs to breathe and that sometimes at night when we weren’t looking he begged for death.

I could see in his face he was embarrassed.

Every time he looked in the mirror the man he was more and more, was no more.

He could no longer take his shirt off he had to be helped and when he faltered in his steps he had to be carried.

He was nothing but skin and bones.

He looked around the world now knowing that its end was coming towards him and he couldn’t stop it, he cried.

He didn’t want it to end but he couldn’t stop it.

He had come to terms with fate.

I hadn’t.

And now on the hospital bed with the hymns of the morphine chanting, I could sense his pain.

Now with the scars of surgery imprinted on his brain, I could feel his thoughts.

the ones that cried for all of this to be over.

And yet, in spite of everything, I encourage, press, and hope that the fight continues.

I pray that it’s not today that you go.

I might could bare losing you tomorrow but, not today not just yet.

I hold onto your fingers.

there cold and limp.

I try to rub them till there warm but the cold lingers.

and then I realize that in spite of my wants and needs the fight has been lost.

should I be glad?

should I be sad?

I ask you what you think as the alarms cry a different tune now.

then I come to realize, come to understand, no matter how I beg, no matter how I cry you’re cold; your stone dead.

And just like those dandelions, we blew as kids I breathe you out and watch as your ashes scatter into the wind, going...going... and finally in totality your gone.