3:45 pm, April 27, 2021

Then the Divine Energy formed a creature from the dirt of the earth and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life and the creature became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)

The call had come early
on a cold windy day:
not much time left.

We rushed to hospital bedside,
a little more than 85 years
after she first sucked in air
with newborn’s wail.

Moved overnight from ICU
to new room, clutter
of restraining death
left behind. No buzzes or beeps
from monitors or machines
forcing air into reluctant lungs.

Bed, table, three chairs,
not quite enough for
four children and daughter-in-law
waiting for mother to die,
anxious minutes stretching to tedious hours.

Staff brought coffee and snacks
as we veered from whispered
confessions of love
to talking as if she wasn’t there.

Nurses cautioned the dying can hear
but we still discussed needed arrangements,
how she didn’t like green peppers
but wouldn’t notice if diced tiny,
and a moment of politics that almost
drove me from the room.

She teased us a bit at the end,
falling still.
Is that it? Is she gone?

Then, ragged inhale,
first of several not-quite-final gasps
before her body was ready
to move to its appointed place
in the burial plot next to Dad,
two lanes directly behind
the cemetery’s maintenance building.

©2023 Kenneth W. Arthur