Poem — Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

My wife and I spent Thanksgiving
In the kitchen with my Dad
Snacking on the food her family had provided
Talking about options
And the inevitable
Threatened
She needed to go to a new hospital
The original was ill equipped
For this long and intense a stay
Between MRSA
And a tracheotomy
And the dangers
Of a slow awakening
From a long coma
She was going to have to move
And we dreaded it
The new hospital
With its higher level of care
And pool of specialists
Could get her out of the woods
But it wasn’t made for families
And promises
Access would be strictly controlled
The issue now
Was time
How long would it take
To get her stable enough
To move
The issues did not
Make the turkey go down easy
And the afternoon was long and blank
With the sadness
Of the empty holiday
My mother was not awake for

– J.C. Hewitt