Tag: dying

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Being

This month, I’m writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. The prompt today captures the essence of what it feels like when you are all set to write, new journal and pens, time on your hands, the perfect chair, and nothing comes to mind that you feel like writing about. Today, Goldberg asks us to just write who we are, what we are feeling.

Layers of Being

when Dad woke up

after the shock

he announced he was

surprised to be here

and declared, I’m different

and it has me wondering

whether we exist in layers

of being

and when several get

torn away at once

we feel the going

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Saying Goodbye

In Dad’s final days, we recorded some audio clips that will keep him close to us and help us process this consuming grief we are feeling. My brother and I spent countless hours by his side as he reluctantly shifted his weight from this world to Heaven to be with our mother again, a lot like a kid being dropped off for summer camp who wants to go but keeps coming back for one more reassuring hug before being able to go pick a bunk. His words here are powerful reminders to do things while we still can.

There are lessons on this side in the moment of hearing Dad’s recorded words spoken, but there are the realities of this on the other side, once a person has left this world, in seeing so many things that did not get finished. We see it in the unfinished projects, the bookmarks, the tasks, the notes, and the paperwork. My brother stood in the shed last weekend and held up an ornate wooden spindle: for the stair rail we were going to refinish back in the 1980s, he explained. It struck me in a visual way when I walked in his kitchen and saw the Lazy Susan still on the counter, covered in shot glasses that were filled with his medicine doses. That’s how he organized his medicines for the week. I gave it a spin and watched it whirl, then slow, then stop.

Then, I discarded each pill and stacked the glasses in the box I was packing to be donated, wondering where each would land beyond its purpose here in the grand scheme of their own lives as medicine cups before I moved on to the next counter and the cabinet after that and the shelves after that.

How quickly a life shuts down and the physical space once occupied becomes a hollow cavity. A dumpster. A donation box. An estate sale. A few memorable pieces tucked into the folds of our own homes as reminders that what matters truly are the memories – – not the stuff.

no one leaves this world

feeling like they’re finished with

all that needs doing

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July Open Write Day 1 of 3 with Jennifer Jowett

Today’s host for the first day of the July Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Jennifer Jowett of Michigan. You can read her full prompt here, inspiring writers to compose a poem of Memory Threads – – a way to breathe in healing through fabric of story and connection.

This month, I’ve been capturing Dad’s final words and stories in audio clips and poems as he inched closer and closer to Heaven, one foot in this world and one in the next. It’s as if Jennifer’s prompt was written just for me. That’s the thing about poetry ~ it meets you exactly where you are and invites you into the vast realm of each moment, scattering the light and blanketing the dark and swimming fully immersed in the shadows. For me, there is no greater healing than what is found in prayer and verse. I’m convinced it’s why the Bible itself – the Holy Scripture – is written in verse. Because it casts light on all truth and heals souls right where they are, and it invites personal response.

I hope you will visit the link above today and read some of the poems and, perhaps, write your own. Even if you don’t share it with anyone, my wish for you is the peace of writing and the healing of expression. Forget perfection. Forget whether it’s good or not, whether it’s right or wrong. There are no rules.

Just dive in.

Still Life with Dying Father

my brother and I

sat by our father

in his final hours

each labored breath

casting ethereal ripples

on the gossamer veil

hanging sheer and thin

between man and Maker

each weakening whisper

each story

each prayer

each memory

becoming weightless

dancing gracefully

toward the shimmering glow

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June Pantoum: I Had a Horrific Dream

A Pantoum poem contains 16 lines and is a recycled line poem using only 8 original lines in this frame of appearance: 1234. 2546. 5768. 7381.

I had a horrific dream

I woke up crying because

Mom was still alive when Dad was dying

and he rejected Mom

I woke up crying because

Dad was coerced by a desperate stranger

and he rejected Mom

for a hand-flapping liar

Dad was coerced by a desperate stranger

he cast aside the love of his life

for a hand-flapping liar

Dad was declared insane

he cast aside the love of his life

Mom was still alive when Dad was dying

Dad was declared insane

I had a horrific dream

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Thursday the 12th: Leading up to Friday the 13th

The last person to see our father alive who knew him was Nick Doster.

My brother Ken and I had been trying to keep vigil next to Dad’s bedside so that he didn’t die alone in a room, but the hospice nurse urged us to go take showers and grab an hour or so of sleep when we’d become too exhausted. Some patients look for those moments to die alone, preferring not to have loved ones near in their final moments, she’d assured us. We knew the time was close, too, because just that afternoon Dad had begun the conversations with the others not of this world, but with whom he was having undeterminable conversations and for whom he was reaching.

Nick Doster and Dad had traveled to Wrigley Field in Chicago to see the Cubs play several years back, and shared a deep love of all things sports. So it was no surprise that when Nick showed up in the remaining hours of Dad’s life with a red Georgia Bulldogs hat, Dad found strength for an appreciative smile.

Imagine our bittersweet sadness when the call came at 4 a.m. that Dad had passed. We felt the grief of the loss and the joy of the release of all pain and suffering from this earthly realm into the Heaven he preached about all his life. Now. Imagine us walking into that Hospice room to spend time prior to the funeral home coming for the body.

Take all the time you need, the hospice nurse offered.

Imagine us opening that wide door one last time and looking at the bed, only to see a bright yellow blanket embroidered with Psalm 119:76 in black stitching on one corner covering Dad’s body – the sunshine of Heaven. And imagine a face at total peace, no wires or tubes protruding, no oxygen machine droning, the red hat still on his head against the stark white of the pillow.

My brother and I agreed – – he wears the hat to Heaven. We know it will be the perfect complement to his black doctoral robe with the velvet on the sleeves and the red piping. Above all, we know it will bring smiles to those who will come for visitation to see that Dad, ever the champion of going as far as one can go with education and cheering as strong as one can cheer for the Georgia Bulldogs, can still cause a stirring of hearts.

Imagine the grief

Imagine the laughter

Imagine the joy

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#VerseLove April 21 – with Darius Phelps

Darius Phelps of New York is our host today for Day 21 of #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, inspiring us to write poems of grief or disillusionment. You can read more about Darius and read his full prompt here. He mentions that the ancient Chinese believed that by burning the house down when relatives died, it would send the house to the place where they were so they could have their homes beyond this life. I reflected for a while on that idea this morning, even chuckling about the Calgon laundry whitener that I remember commercials for as a child – – an Asian actor would come into the frame holding a box, saying, “Ancient Chinese Secret” when someone wondered about how the clothes got so clean. I think the ancient Chinese had a lot of things right. Come join us and read today’s poems. 

Up in Flames ^ Choose One: House or Legacy? ^


those ancient Chinese

had it right: burn the house down!

strike up the torch flame!



better the house go 

up in smoke than the siblings

killing each other



who gets the dwelling?

who gets the crystal timepiece?

who "gets" anything?



executor’s call:

who gets to make decisions?

who denies morphine?



which one plans all meals?

oh, but NO SUGAR, stage 4

cancer patient fat?!?



what is this fresh hell??

give Mom a damn M&M!

stop controlling LIFE!



inheritance sucks

some get fortunes, some get F(ORK$#)

who "gets" anything??!



those ancient Chinese

had it right: strike the match and

walk in peace from fire