When I Woke Up and You went to Sleep
For my mother 1/6/1959-1/7/24
Probably not entirely finished as I have a lot of scraps about my parents all over notebooks that I have yet to sift through. Not to be longer just more cohesive.
I was not able to turn my back on what if?
I guess I failed you in saying I’ll make sure to take care of myself.
I certainly could look not in the eyes of anyone else
And yours remained closed
So I could never know.
If my words were heard.
Did you hear my name?
I feel I’m all to blame.
Even though you’d say otherwise
And logic tells me so
But it thrashes me all the same
To get rid of shame
I feel, why did I ignore your calls?
I never had before?
Was I Thinking of myself?
Or was I thinking of you?
But you’d say, yourself
“The order is rightful”
“The order is natural”
Me before you
It’s how life should be
I guess I agree
You can’t imagine how I miss you.
Just one more time I’d ask of death
One more day
One more breath
We don’t have to talk
Just do what we do
What we always did
By Ourselves.
Silently peruse the shelves
For things we loved and didn’t need shouting to the other this is so neat do you agree?
I cannot fathom never again.
Because instead I watched you
Winnow away
Waste away
What I thought was of flesh colored iron
I saw Rust and break and fall in two
I regret what I could not do
I regret what I did not do
Made you eat when you would not
So you did not
Made you speak when you could not
So you did not
Would I have Taken you across the world looking for a cure anew
I regret that even these things would not of saved you.
Nothing could
Nothing I could’ve done would’ve saved you.
You have a glow about you still.
As I look down on you from the living.
What about your spirit keeps giving and giving.
when your hands are so cold.
Now you are of flame
Then ash
Then air
All that’s left a name and a memory to bear
Your spirit I feel must still be near
You’d not leave me fully yet.
Not when you know I have such regret
Because you’d laugh and tell me to cease my dramatics dark child
Dark child that is my light.
You’d tell me I already know how to fight
The battles you left me to full of bark and full of bite
But never one for spite
You’d tell me walk through the night because morning is there
I just must have the foresight
To know your by my side
In the beginning you said you were just growing old
And then nearer the end
you never said the pain was too much.
Even though you jerked at my touch
You walked through life without a crutch
So this was just another thing to pass
It barely showed on your face
The longing you must have had
To endure
In the night when you woke alone in a house without another soul.
As you felt deep within the wounds take their toll
You still sat within your mothering role
resisted the desire to ask or take
As you knew you’d made mistakes
Gave yourself secrets
As you let me trick myself. The regard
You gave me
When I should’ve sat and had a conversation with myself.
Instead I said I know she’s goin to leave me
But i still got a long time
I lied to myself time after time
You knew what your body told you
And you knew I wasn’t blind.
But my mind
Said no.
This is how it always was
So it always is.
You taught me
That I wasn’t as honest with myself as I thought I had been before
you said. You did.
That even you weren’t sure.
You were ok with me in denial while you languished alone in bed.
I could never see your face as the dead
Until I did that morning.
Pain and hurt and thinking I didn’t care.
A creeping sense of dread
You thought it’d hurt me more to think of you like this and that’s fair.
But you could’ve told me you knew it was near.
What am I saying I knew it was.
I found every distraction I could handle
That a soul in pain does.
To keep itself from seeing the truth
And then I woke up.
While you went to sleep.
I woke up too late
And you were already asleep
Soon to be forever.
What was left wasn’t enough
The doubt began to creep
I realized how very late I was
They gave you sleep
Your pain wasn’t more important than me?
How selfish of me to ask
After I gave 6 months too scared to see.
Losing you was the one fear I could never face.
I had yet to think of all the years I’d trace
Until you were no longer here
So when I woke and you went to sleep.
The grief hit hard wrapped around my heart like a fast growing vine.
I sat there unbelieving counting down the minutes.. the sand in the hourglass
Losing time.
The shock numbed me.
And i stayed awake 3 days and nights looking at you sleep
Wanting to grab the sleep they brought for just an hr or three.
Instead I watched them cut the time
Every 4 hrs to three
To two
To one.
Until I was told myself to sleep.
My grip on sanity was leaving me
I did not care what others wanted to see of me.
What if?
you woke one more time
There was nothing left unsaid between us
But what about one more time?
You already knew
But did you know?
I told you anyway while your breathing shallowed.
Your skin pale and your cheeks hollow
I sang to you and watched your face.
For any movement there to be traced
Movements they said they swore you were hearing.
And yea it showed on your face.
You laid and listened to me like you always said.
In the car, at home and when you called on the phone
“I just wanted to hear your voice”
You’d say
And at 3am on the morning of your birthday.
Was the last conversation we’d have alone.
Mine had a tone
Your words to me were silent but I heard them through to the very bone
i watched you come alive in the small ticks in an eyebrow or lip
I wet them with a straw through which you could not sip.
But I was made to sleep the next night.
And I could not bear the thought of you leaving without me.
Your next adventure was the only one I’d not beside you be.
And when the sun rose on the first 7th of the year.
I knew then you had only moments.
Your breath had changed and your hands had given up their warmth.
A pantomime played
As I had not prayed
I knew the call had to be made
On your face the shadow of the haunted grace
The grace of one whose soul had already started to depart.
You even made death into an art.
I faced the window sun starting to crawl in.
I waited for any sign
Of just one more word
Morning was always your time.
And I guess this was no different.
When 830 am chimed
Down the hall.
You almost seemed to tell me you were waiting til you heard my voice
As if you had made the choice
To wait til I awoke.
Because not 15 minutes after.
The peace had broke.
because a voice behind me said Katie.
But it was not yours
A frozen moment as I put my hand up on your chest.
And the breath slipped out of you.
And the light left skin for good
Why does s body become stiller than still?
I could barely say I love you
I was alone to see and too feel
Your soul leave and leave a body numb and stale
Your veins stopped pumping and
The vessel but a shell.
Aunt ran out to tell others
But only nurses
For no one had made it in time but her and me.
only I would see your last breath
Feel it on your chest
This was best
Was I selfish to think so?
Why did you go?
I told you it was ok
But I lied did you not know?
I stayed still and backed up to the end of the bed
You were gone, empty, finished, dead.
a voice that could not be my own cracked and said
I love you so much.
This monsters touch.
Cancers sickly venom
Only it’s embrace could make you go from what you were to this
In such a short time and I do not mean deaths kiss.
For this had taken you alive.
The strongest woman I’ve ever know to a new born kitten in merely weeks.
Those times I came to see the you
Your mind was different and it’s just the chemo they told me.
But the last stage was certainly obvious to see
I knew deaths stages and the time frame and still I refused to see.
Would I even believe
But maybe it was best
I finally awoke
When you went to a sleep.
Oh this is much too deep
I stayed by your side
I tried
Even then to buy myself some time.
It could be another week
What if another three.
Desperately trying to keep you here with me.
You in Lonely nights spent thinking only of an end while I worked
Pretending I didn’t see.
Yes it was only 4 months
But I from this I could not flee.
I’d hear you cry in your voice
And I’d like a fool make my noise
On the phone and say what’s wrong
What don’t you tell me?
I’ve never been so naive
How did I not see?
When I already had been told.
It’s the nature of grief to shield myself from the cold
Given all the answers yet still not truly perceived
So I grieved
And the pain that made you weak.
Christmas night I stayed by your side
And wished selfishly
I had not
And never can I see the Eve as beautiful again
Not with where we have been.
We did everything we’d normally do
Except eat you did not.
Movies once laughed at, we found no joy
We said not a word except silent tears and sentences as a ploy
Yes here and there we tried in vain
But mostly it was silence that reigned..
Christmas when I woke up and you went to sleep.
I helped you bath and clean
And I saw what I should never have seen
And your tears stuck to me
Like a millions years unclean
I turned off the tv screen
For that sound track would never be the same again
You did not mean for me to see
You could not walk it had just hit me
Why.
I could not even cry.
How could I not so clearly see?
Realization struck me like bad news in slow motion leaving lips pulled tight over teeth
Hit me like they say a ton of bricks
Only the bricks kept me alive to breath
I suffocated under the realization time would never pass by the same way again
And I could never react in the same way I had been
Never again.
I said goodnight for the last time and you fussed silently, nervously over blankets and things near your bed
Things that had no need.
Just to turn off the images in your head.
And you wanted the light on
For the dark I knew made you feel underneath
The grief and the knowing our time was brief
I went to the other room staring at the fan above me
I heard the sound of your sleep
And I could not get comfort
Yes I woke up an you went to sleep
I shut that door somehow
Almost like a books last chapter The End.
leaving it beside your bed with a ton of words on my lips
Never to be spoken
Never to be said
But nothing was unsaid between us
Yet I realize now those words said were different
And not enough
When I said them without a reason
They are not quite as full of love
As they are of need.
So at the end they werent enough
Not the same.
They felt aimed
Not organic, perhaps too tough.
Not as much meaning.
When the time is short and the waves get rough
I didn’t hug you bye that morning but hard I kissed your cheek
I left your side.
But could never hide from the tension in your own mothers room
The tension one could only assume
Was that death hung near and sorrow loomed
You always told me don’t be so doom and gloom
But the smile I wore could not ever trick that dimly lit room
A garden for melancholy that at night glowed with the moon
Through a curtain less window at your back
Your friends had left their flowers along side your bed but upon them only death would bloom.
And there was a scent that had within it the smell of doom.
I had to set myself free from the tension.
Run away when I had never.
Because of such a small thing that was branded upon me forever.
Christmas morning gifts that were for you to use years ahead.
Was all I can remember.
They stain whatever could be pleasant
The Eve marred with baited silence.
The morn with childhood pretense.
For You had told no one you would not be here.
so many thought you’d leave that bed.
So the gifts and cards you read.
The Pain, as you pretended to think to yourself you’d be right here.
The frown you tried so to shed.
But I saw clearly the sorrow that through your purely white thought had bled.
Yes, I could see the thoughts into your head.
as you looked at months in a new calendar
that youd only for 7 days be.
We had looked at the pictures of each birthday month
Since I was so small it was a routine.
I had to get free.
I admit when others got there I felt I fled from thee
To find a place to cry so you would not also see.
I knew you were goin but I kept adding time we did not have.
And by the time they took you to that room in an empty hall
The last room you’d ever be.
Where it was just the silence, the white walls and you and me.
Must it be I? You and I?
Me and you?
I put my mind to thoughts like these.
Distracting myself with empty reasonings.
Like you had moving things around your bed at your mothers on that Christmas Eve.
But this room was where I watched you rise no more but the sun rose in the 24 times 3.
I spoke to then quiet.
You answering in silence where words should be.
I sang to you when you said you’d not hear me sing again until your funeral you’d always decree.
I bet I surprised you I saw it on your face i wanted to believe.
And then I went quiet as I had back when I stopped my songs when I past by 17.
My voice didn’t sing again.
Your voice did not speak again.
I like a tyrant would not leave your side.
They’d have to abide.
I’d not shower or
I sat and let hours seep
Yes I woke up when you went to sleep.
I don’t blame anyone
I don’t regret too much.
I grieve over the years I thought we had.
And the hugs without touch
I had not a single reason for disbelieving such
But still I believed I’d have you for many more months
And the time I’ll never get to have.
But those last they seem like a dream
3 days carved out of a lifetime
That had the most effect on me
Surreal and frozen in time
Like you right there beside me.
“Remember her in the better days”
What when she looked more alive?
No, this was who you were at the end.
I’d forever more strive
To keep this part of you living
Like the non fiction of the matter, played in real time
I don’t want you to feel pain but please stay.
I’m not asking forever
Just a little more is all i likely deserve
Because I woke up
When you went to sleep.
I sat in doubt and disbelief.
But no not yet, not yet a grief.
That had me still, motionless for over 3 weeks
Much like your last 3
Only you did not rise up as the dead like me.
Since then I’m walking as somebody still in a dream.
For all I can do to redeem.
Is to forget, erase my memory
or give you memories more.
And I can’t.
I can’t Sit beside you and not shut that door.
Do what I had in the years before.
And give you all the time I had for you.
In any adventure
Where we walked in the sun and drove the roads of the wilds.
We would’ve explored the many miles.
The places we’d yet to run.
Escape into a world of our own.
But we did Christmas Eve although a hollow one.
But those last 3 days I watched you ready for the one door timeless I could not go through
But still I said everything I could think to say
Even though your eyes were closed and beside me laid.
Still.
And the hours would move fast and closer your surrender would creep
When I woke up
And you went to sleep.
3 days
In the cold, in the light, yet in the mourning deep.
Until the morning I woke up
And the forever morning you went to sleep.
After my house burnt and I lost my two precious cats plus everything i had except some heirlooms I had hidden so I wasn’t to upset about that... because I figured that was loss...but then I lost who I claimed as my best friend and mother to cancer 4 months later... i dont calll her a best friend because we were that mom and daughter .. it was because I truly craved her presence over anyone else’s and she’s the only one who was there when I needed someone the most and also was the only energy that made me feel better or one of them...I was happy to be there for her last breath.... I’ll never be the same ...however when I went home and found dad dead on kitchen floor a week after .. I went through a dark time.. I’m very strong ...I know this... I can handle it but that 3 for 3 and also dealing with even more personal issues that didn’t feel great... has been a lot to say the least ...still im alright and always will be ... I don’t have the ability to be hopeless....dad had his faults like any of us but I loved him dearly as well...he’d been dead a few days... I also split from a love of 16 yrs and now live on my own and just work and keep to myself except seeing that love as he’s still my best friend... but this all made me who I am today and I’ll never regret it .. I miss them dearly... what a year... I’m acting like it happened years ago... but no just January ...-‘I didn’t mean to come off all tragic but there facts are simply tragic ... I couldn’t begin to start explaining ...there’s more than even all that.... And there are those who enjoyed it... they didn’t even realize their opinion or care didn’t matter in the least ... but the fact they are that way ...it’s truly sad..I pity them in the kindest way... yea idk why I’m using this like a journal but I always have and idk why I’d stop ... I haven’t come out an wrote about it publically even on this site where no one personally knows me except those who read it I’ve given it too and most don’t .. I haven’t put out anything in verse form ... I have a lot of writing in it.. just not out..if you still have parents...tell them you love them now because it’s not promised and when “ never again” stage hits you .. you’re changed.. and with that change .. it brings people who don’t understand out expecting you to be the same ... I’m not unhappy or even mad.. I’m actually very at peace ... I’m no stranger to death I’ve seen it all my life ... my grandfather was another father as they lived by us and kept stability in my life which could be chaotic between parents.. he died at 11 and I miss him still.. mema in 2002 ..who I didn’t grieve as much as she had a stroke not long after he died and therefore changed so it was just different when she passed 3 yrs later... a friend died in a four wheeler wreck. In 8th grade which taught me about your own age dying.. even if I feel in every way ok about that .. it threw my whole mentality into death and what it meant as someone so young to die is scary at that age..another animal all together...then another girl in same friend group died in a freak accident that is known to be foul play amongst most... again I’m fine from that as I wasn’t as close but it jars you... I’ve lost more but they weren’t as close didn’t effect me at all but my point is not a death count as if it’s pride that’s absurd ... people in military and in worse lives than I have seen and felt way worse pain and tragedy.. I’m saying why I think I’m able to deal with it in a positive way.. it’s what I wanna do for a living ..in my chosen job for awhile I saw many of my dementia patients pass and was there with some right before and at... I’m no stranger nor am I afraid of death.. im afraid of pain before death really ...I was goin into mortician school but after parents I’m looking more into a death doula... I can reach people there more and I feel everything happens for a reason... people will say or have said you don’t look like what you’ve been through... and it’s true many don’t think I’ve had any pain which is absurd to judge people’s trauma by their looks they honestly never have any idea ..been through the most? In no way..people go through way more and i have alot left im sure so still I laugh ..they can have it and then tell me what they think they know....its amazing what people will compete with you for .. tragedy one upping is just absurd .. but they exist... why have toeven say stuff like that is beyond me .. but because of it I feel I have to make excuses for myself and that’s wrong... especially writing poetry or journaling... course it’s not here anyway that anyone does such a thing...just because they don’t know from me telling out about it all the time about childhood and teenage years and on ...I feel for those who try my patience as I’ve been through it before and I have no qualms ending a friendship or relationship if I feel it serves me none .. but ahem anyway.. I’m hoping it can reach someone else who may need it..my point wasn’t to tell my sob story but to make myself better heard ... it’s nice ...I’m actually exposing myself more as part of healing .. even the sad or weird parts
#cancer #death #dying #loss #lossoflovedone #mother #mourning
