Family

Mother

If my mother had lived,

she’d be 98 today,

and who could know how

she’d see the world..

If my mother had lived,

would she be in awe,

or, like the most of us,

take what we have for granted?

If my mother had lived,

she’d have seen so many 

wondrous things, like

trips to the moon and

a vaccine for polio, like

electric cars and

a black man as president, like

Dick Tracy fantasies become
Steve Jobs realities, like

Valium and artificial hearts,

both of which might have

helped her live.

But my mother did not live,

and she missed so many

other things, like

her son in Marine dress blues, and

her son beneath a college mortar board , and

her son so beautifully married, and

her son at peace in a lovely life.

Of course, she also missed 

too many needless wars, and

too many hungry souls, and

too much thoughtless avarice, and

too much not being done about it all.

I am sorry that she missed it all,
even the bad, even the worst. 

I am sorry, Dr, Seuss, but

I can’t smile because it happened.

It did not happen long enough.

—————————

Father

The moment of his death had come,

with certainty, and of course, finality,

there in the middle of the night,

no idea of the time,

simply an assurance that it was now,

after what seemed like a month of

watching and waiting,

my step-sisters,

his widow-to-be,

and me.

Together in that apartment,

but each of us

alone with him as well,

receiving guests, family, friends,

first when he was awake,

then during the stove-pipe coma,

finally ushering in

the ministry of Hospice.

All conversations had been

one-way for a while,

all of us wanting to say the things

we missed saying in brighter times.

It was mid-sentence in one such talk

That I knew, then flew about the home,

gathering us all around that bed,

everyone questioning the need,

the urgency, not fathoming

the emergency, when, from

the depths of the disease

that was taking him, he

woke, and smiled

as he never had before,

looked around the bed,

nodding at each of us in turn,

my sisters and me, then,

finding his wife,

found the capacity to speak

of his love once more,

and just then,

the moment came.