There are more than a few things I’ve done
For which I’m at a loss for words to explain.
Sometimes, late at night, I wonder
Why recurring memories still haunt me?
Emerge from shadows— at times they speak,
Often they merely stand and watch from corners in the room.
They bring no regrets. If given a second chance,
I’d do now what I did almost 50 years ago.
Even at the time, I knew I was in violation of the rules:
The policies of the hospital were clear.
But the place was chronically understaffed.
No one was watching when I slipped into
Rooms of patients that were clearly close to death.
Most had been hospitalized for ten or twenty years,
No family came to visit. They were alone,
Would die alone that very night in silent hours of darkness.
No doctors attempted to save them.
Their time had finally come, organs were shutting down.
Some were in their forties, some on the other side of eighty.
Sitting in their rooms, I held their hands,
Could tell when pulse was weakening.
They would not survive till morning light, but still
Had something to offer, to teach.
There were times I closed the door and locked it,
Dimmed the lights down low. Felt in the silence
The presence of a Holy Other, a sacred time where it was
Impossible to simply leave. If there were saints or angels,
I asked them to gather close. Then removed my shoes,
If I sensed they wanted holding,
Climbed into bed and gently held them….
I learned how important body is to life—
Saw them struggle to hold breath of life when
They inhaled and expanded, then released.
Bony limbs held heads that openly gasped for air—
So close to death, how does one watch
Without becoming owned, opened, chilled?
The eyes—always the eyes searched
Until they found me, taught me to mourn,
To pray muted prayers, for them, for me
In this silent time of letting go.
I learned how the body is not impeded from Being,
As long as heart does beat, yet slowly uncouples,
Seeks a place underneath the earth to rest.
I could not close my eyes nor walk away,
To see with young blue eyes, to behold something
So dark, so grim, so holy seemed impossible yet necessary.
Now, in the safe house of this poem, I find new words—
Though then I was not entirely voiceless.
Even to see, to be seen was precious.
Sometimes I worry that I will die before I’m ready.
By the time I was eight, I’d had three near death experiences,
Now I’ve had more than ten, yet death has not taken me.
But in those nights in hospital, death itself was in the room.
Its darkness burned and I felt presence of a hunger that
Could not be moved or delayed, but merely satisfied.
Have you seen someone die? Heard the rattle
As the end approaches closer and closer?
I had no power to save, but only to bless, to bless
With kindness all of life. Let me be aware, even now.
Let me remember you, even as you say goodbye.
Some might think this morbid or that perhaps
I had some secret thrill to be alone in a hospital room
When the living slipped away. Buddhists call this the moment
When the soul drops the body and slowly transcends,
Moves on to ethereal realms, or lingers for a moment or an hour,
Thanking the cold body for the life it provided.
If anything, I felt no one should be left utterly alone to die.
Someone should witness; someone should care.
I was no savior; I was clear about that. Just let me remember you.
Some of them I had gotten to know; others had never
Spoken a word in years, wounded in war, injured in accidents,
Strokes or disease that took their memories to the point
They didn’t know their names. They were nothing to me.
But in that moment, they became everything to me.
They lingered moment by moment by the grace of God.
Their hearts pumped blood and their lungs still breathed.
In the cold chaos of those moments, it was impossible to leave.
With each passing that I have witnessed,
I felt my own fear of death begin to diminish.
To this day I cannot say how, but I learned
That death is completely safe, though dying might be hard.
Twenty two years later, when I held my father as he slowly died,
I was there not from duty but because I was his only son.
My mother and sister couldn’t come close to the bed,
So alone, I encircled him gently with whatever love I had.
All of the previous deaths I’d witnessed were there in the room,
Made it possible for me to stay, not to walk away.
At two in the morning, his breath grew shallow.
By three he breathed his last. But I was steady in determination
To cradle him to the end. I closed his eyes. I prayed…
Thirty minutes later, two hospice nurses finally arrived.
I told them what I wanted, so they watched as I removed his
Clothes and slowly washed his body, anointed him with oils,
Dressed him in clothes that I had picked. Then we gently
Slipped his body into the black bag and I zipped it closed.
I never saw his body again. But if I close my eyes, I can still see it now.
When the hearse arrived, I helped as best I could, tears
Flowing down my face, but I sat next to the driver
Until we reach the funeral home, then took a cab back home.
There was no pride. There was no honor. I simply did
What I felt called to do to attend my father at his death,
Mourn him at the funeral, and preside at the burial service.
When I was overcome with grief, I paused and took my time.
If others were uncomfortable with my tears,
That was their problem, not mine to own.
I find no pleasure in suffering. I have no love of death.
No one ever thanked me. It was a task I never shared.
But in a very personal way, there was purpose to be found.
Yet still the memories occasionally come, always late at night.
It is amazing what shadows can project onto our lives,
Lithographed over face, skin. Since childhood,
We know our own shadow, that gray dark area
Found when body blocks the light.
We dance and find that shadows move— a visible absence
Linked by distance to your own very sense of Self. With open eyes,
We see, we witness, we record as memories an awareness
That in some mysterious way, shadows are a harbinger of death.
In some future day, we will no longer reach out to touch
Our own flesh, for our bodies are not owned, merely
Borrowed, one day to leave, uncouple, let go and move on.
For now, they advise we do not touch our faces, lest we die.
But soon will come a time when we return to the body, call back
Our arms and legs and feet, to clothe ourselves in silk and cotton,
Chew our nails, eat our scabs, linger before the mirror as we age,
Brush our silver hair that thins just as childhood freckles faded.
Each day, if we are awake, we die a little death in preparation for
That eventual time when soul and body are ready to say
Goodbye, expanding into different light. Thank you.
Thank you for all I learn each day, each night.
Bless me, that I may see and love.
"Headwinds" ---Fred Turpin's Poetry Blog 