This Monday’s Poem of the Week continues our medical theme, and the difficulties we all face in that awkward transition time when someone close to us is nearing the end of their life’s journey.
Her Patient Days
What was it but an act of abnegation when she
shook her head and said, her voice small enough
to slide under a locked door,
no pain no pain. She who had always
given us reassurance, though now
nothing could assured. Those were her patient days –
her body a tool she could no longer wield,
an awkwardness, a jerking here and there
when she tried. For many years
we watched her move her body
as if it were a thing she’d always easily master –
like a driver who could carry on a full conversation
with a passenger, about a book on tape
both were listening to, could take her right hand
off the wheel to raise a pointed finger in the air
for emphasis, and still, still, you’d never
lose confidence in her control of the car.
For years. But now her body
was a weight only professionals could maneuver.
We interceded when they prodded us forward
telling us how to move her, how to touch her,
and where. They, clipped and knowing
in their scrubs, and us
undone, revealed
in our clumsiness as if we wore thick
asbestos gloves. There were other things which
I had wanted to say here, other territory
to which I’d intended to travel. But now I see her
in that bed, the lights lowering for the evening, her body
an unmaneuverable mass in front of her
almost, it seems, smothering her small voice –
No pain no pain. And I wonder why
we’d even asked if she felt any. Did we think
we could help her, us with our muffled hands?
- Benjamin S. Grossberg
Medico Musings 