photo credit: garryknight

Writing helps me cope.  How about you, what helps you cope?

This was a tough but quick write.
I suspect it’s a tough read.
Especially if you’ve come to BouncebackCafe.com for a bit of a lift.
Why share this sad poem with you?
I’m thinking that resilience isn’t just about keeping up the good fight in the face of adversity.
It’s also about learning how to work our way through the pain and back when the worst happens.
Whatever the worst might be for each of us.

And so, I’m taking you along on my path through some very hard times.
I promise not to drag it out.
Just this post and one more.

And if you need to, skip this post and my next one Such is the Power – A Lament as well.  Either way, thank you for coming and sticking with us at BouncebackCafe.com.  You, as well as friends and family, are our strength.

Sadly, my husband of more than 40 years died two weeks ago following a two year battle with esophageal cancer.  I wrote this piece about a month before his death, just as a way to purge my psyche of the huge pall that engulfed me.  Did it help?  Well, yes, for those brief moments in time when I could simply put words to my grief but then it was back to my role as caregiver and helpmate.  Coming back to this piece a month later, I see that I knew what I didn’t want to know – the end was near.

Walking Beside

Walking beside this dying man …
He sheds pounds like autumn leaves
His previous vice abandons him
Appetite, his favorite pastime
Gone, no interest, no joy
No pleasure in foods that satisfy

He dwindles
No reading
No doing
No

Hair sheds too – blanketing surfaces
Showing skin and bones
Abandoned by the softness of
A fine pewter do

Sorry he says
When it’s the best that
He can do
No more sorries
I say, you’re doing the
Best you can do

His smile is squiggly
But genuinely
Lights his eyes
So little does these days

Will he get better
Before he gets worse?
Hoping won’t make it so
But there’s not much more
We can do

But get through each day
Cherish the moments
Be
Together
In
Silence
Us.

Writing helps me cope.  How about you, what helps you cope?