Seeing It Coming, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrss37 on Twitter)

To look in their eyes
Knowing the clock
Does not care
You don’t know

The exact second
Of when, even if where
I watched an episode
Jo the friend of Blair

She had a teacher
She became close to
However she was
Unaware

She was dying
And when Jo found out
She had to face her
The pain and endless crying

In the presence
Of the loved in decline
The courage of facing
The last tick of time

This episode brutal
Yet compassionate
And kind, reminded
Me of my mother

In her last days alive
In the face of oblivion
Her only worry was me
Her only son

And I was the one
To hold her hand
In her last hours
To comfort her

Knowing death towered
The escape no one gets
But to have that life with her
Absolutely no regrets.
(end)

Today I was watching an old rerun of “The Facts Of Life” and Jo became close friends with an English teacher and at first, as the script goes, thought the teacher was moving to another school for more money, but it turned out the teacher was dying.

My mom has been gone for 6 years now, but watching that episode tore me up, because I know the feeling of seeing those facing death, and it is a horrifying feeling to know what they must be facing, but also the courage to be there for them in their last moments. You do the crying alone. Truth was, she was always braver than me. I knew she was afraid, but in her last weeks she was more concerned about me than anything else.