Just the Facts
Bedbound, your mind
still poked through the morphine haze
to register a world
which had shrunk
to a hospice room
with Dad dying with you
in a bed a few
untaken steps away.
You had withered to a small,
elongated bump embossed
in bed sheets.
Anxious to go, you kept asking,
" How long now ".
" Soon Mum, soon, not long now",
I would answer, feeling bad
for failing to be more precise.
Dad would bite down hard
on his welling tears.
You were expected to go first.
Dad bore his killer
under cover, keeping the pain
to himself, yet it came
quick and took him in his sleep.
We had to tell you he had died
a mere metre from where you lay.
We helped you out of bed
to give Dad your parting kiss.
He always wanted to go first
and thankfully got his way.
His greatest fear was losing you.
You were the stronger,
more stoic one.
Two weeks later you were dead.
We had to give a solemn promise
that there would be no eulogies
for you both. You shared a hate
of being publicly paraded,
though without good reason.
Humility taken too far can
inhibit a family's need to voice
their grief. Reluctantly we kept
our word. Love ached beneath
the silence and the loss
seem to cut more deeply
sharpened by being bound
by just the facts.
It's the first time I've written
them down.
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