A gentle death (was delivering news), Rev 1

[ellajam]

Thanks for the input. I think some of the nuances would only be caught by docs who have had to walk into a room full of family to deliver what seems obvious... you feel quite vulnerable, you have no idea how people are going to react. I was very much taken aback by how well her family accepted everything and made me feel better. Yes, I was saddened... Hard to explain. I am glad you liked the self sacrifice part. It's hard to explain; that's likely another subject for a bad poem later

I don't think a reader has to be a doc to pick up on the nuances, often it is the doc who has not picked up the nuances of the family. When death comes in a timely manner it can only be those in denial that raise a fuss at the news, IME that is often only one or two of the bunch at most.

I grew up after Jiim Crow laws, but after learning about them I was shocked to think my parents' generation would have known them as the norm had they been reared in the South here. However, the more I struggle with how to put race in here, the more I think it may not belong. Maybe it is just my issue after all, as they didn't care.

The more a struggle with it the more I think it may somehow belong. The dying seem to often wait for something, someone to come, more often someone to leave the room. IMO it may be a change in the energy of the room, the connections they feel or don't, that allows them to let go. Maybe that young white boy holding her hand did it for her.

So, your poem continues to interest me. Think hard on your edit, about your intentions and the many comments. Good luck with it.

Silent sentries flank the long hall,
faces averted, their disposition clouded.
In the middle plays the youngest
of her family, fourth maybe the fifth generation;
I am unsure.

They laugh, skip, dance even mere yards
from where she lay dying.

Small, awkward but undaunted as
I cannot hold the inexorable; 
I cross to her room.

Even more are here, older,
packed tight, embers that surround
her with their warmth
as hers lessens.

Her husband sits by her head,
his gaze fixed, uncertain, hand
tight on his cane.
Beside is the empty chair
for me.

Her eyes of nearly ninety years
soften as I hold her black hand in my white hand,
and anchor myself.  Relief comes as I hold
her and her husband in my mind, 
all others receding dimly.  I disclose
what she already knows.
They all do.

Sooner than expected 
she becomes still.  Her hand in mine yet,
I tell her husband
"She has passed".
Looking nowhere, eyes empty -- he asks no one
"And now what will I do?"

I reach inside but find
nothing
except that which does not grow back,
leaving me less than I was. 
Forward I must grow -- as forward I turn to go.

The children continue to play 
in the warm dappled sunlight
filtered through the paneled window.

She has her victory.  Her calm
inscrutable wisdom not lost
but manifest in all those who 
surround, accept and forgive 
and comfort even me.

[quick note:  this was brought to mind by an earlier poem (that seems to have disappeared) that was about giving negative news.]