A seventeen-year-old drug addict: healed of addiction without rehab.
A thirty-two-year-old professional: told there is nothing more medically doctors can do for a 26% function, worn-out heart,
But the next test shows her heart is back to normal.
A fifty-four-year-old mother: receives the news that her twenty-two-year-old daughter has stage four lymphoma.
Grim yet sympathetic medical faces say, “Chemo sooner, not later.”
Still, only six months later they are shocked when the same girl is cancer free.
I received these miracles.
To believe in miracles, you first have to meet the Miracle Maker.
April 15. 2019
I sit here in anguish, too broken to think
As my sweet girl sobs on from the pain
Of the chemicals, fear, exhaustion and loss
That the cloud of lymphoma does rain.
And I who with joy traded career to be mom
Have failed at life's greatest calling
To keep my child happy and healthy and live
Caught in loving arms when she is falling.
And how do I tell her, "It will be fine."
When my broken heart has its own doubts?
I try to be strong, hold her hand through the pain
But the tears rain when meds knock her out.
The secret I dare not tell anyone else
Is her life is the fuel that feeds mine.
If she loses this fight and moves on from this earth,
I'd follow her quickly behind.
Ironic, indeed, as my tears rain down
On her beautiful bald sleeping head,
Just 23 years ago I watched her like this
Tiny, perfect, asleep in my bed.
Life is a dream you don't know til you wake
If you flew when you jumped or crashed down.
I was flying along so sure of my height
Then I woke in the tears where I drowned.
10/15/2016
For Words Drowned in Tears Poetry Contest
UNSPEAKABLE SADNESS
I dream of a porcelain-skinned baby, newly expelled from my loins.
Giggling, singing, chubby hands extended, feet kicking in unending joy.
She sings simple tunes of love
To the one who makes her happy and chases away the boogey man; to mom.
I awake to the truth that my baby is 23, and the boogey man has a new name.
Frightened glances shoot my way from damp eyes, while shaking hands reach out for support.
But mommy can't chase this away with a band-aid and a lollipop.
This boogeyman, named Lymphoma, scares mommy even more than her frightened cub.
I am helpless. My body is that of a blow-up clown weighted on the bottom so I always bounce back. My exaggerated mouth is painted in an unnatural blood red smile.
The cancer is growing. Her hair is falling out, but I bounce right up
With my unchanging, gleeful expression.
I only hope someone pokes a pin in me if the cancer wins,
So I can melt into a puddle of my own tears,
One that extinguishes my life's fire from the soul-stove of my heart,
Clown face distorting in an agony that truly mimics my existence.
The uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room.
The doctor's silk tie that reflects the tubes of artificial lighting.
The endless vials of blood they draw from my baby's arm.
The area of her arm where the cancer chews hungrily beneath the skin leaving a trail of destruction.
The "PAST DUE" stamped on hospital bills.
Scrubs worn by nurses in the chemo department.
My lips after biting back sobs when her hair falls out in clumps.
My husband's hand when he releases mine for a minute because I'm squeezing too hard.
My eyes in the mirror after yet another sleepless night.
The world I live in is a crimson hell since my daughter was diagnosed with lymphoma.
I give thanks
for a Dementia patient growing more loving in latter years, my mother
for a Dad who has diabetes, high-blood pressure, overweight, and
should have been in the grave 20 years earlier like father and brother
I give thanks
for a wife with lymphoma who has shown her faith and love of God
for a son who traveled the world and used nursing skills for others
for a daughter with challenges growing up, after college had four job offers
I give thanks
For churches that I have attended that have helped mature me
For good jobs to help take care of my family and those in need
For a great education from a Community College and University
For iron sharpening friends and mentors in to my life they gave
For my Lord Jesus Christ who first loved and got me saved
I give thanks
days become short
and carry cold promise
the curve of your breast
anchoring my memory
in sunshine
The blackbird takes off from his perch on
this lone pine in the dairy pasture, winging towards the
sky with all his might but
the pine is pugnacious and bitter, sweltering in winter. Before he
travels a league from her she drops him dead from the sky, victim of some
coniferous voodoo, some hex
or lymphoma ending him like a
matchstick.
I remember...
when I chased the girls around the yard in the snow.
you always gently shouldered me out of their path!
protecting them, while loving me!
I remember...
when I walked you, towards the end, you simply laid-down,
I carried you home
I remember...
Mom called me at work, said you wouldn't eat,
or drink your water, I came home to you
I remember...
taking you to the Vet, he said your body was filled
with lymphoma
I remember...
holding you as you slipped away, after the injection
I remember...
arriving home home and screaming "what have I
done to you Babe Ruth"
I remember...
waking in my slumber to the sound of your toenails clicking
down the hall, coming to sleep at the foot of my bed
I remember...
hearing you come to me three-times,
each time I arose, looking for you
I remember...
you were never there
....For Constance's All Pets Go To Heaven Contest
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