Poem — The First Day

The First Day

The waiting room was crowded
With relative of all kinds
The ones I liked
The ones I didn’t
And we sat there together
Waiting for word
She was in surgery again
The third time in three days I was told
They were taking out her left colon
Sitting there
Things didn’t seem quite as bad
Surgery was better
Than nothing to do but wait
And the doctor nicely explained
That as long as the bowel was intact
She was still worth saving
But without that there was no quality
Left to her life
And no reason to go
Any further
She came out of the surgery
And the report was
Relatively good
Relatively positive
I went back with my father
To see her
Feeling as if maybe
I had overreacted
To all the thoughts of tragedy going through my mind
As we stood next to her unconscious body
We watched as her heart
Beat slower and slower
Until she crashed
We weren’t in the room five minutes
Before her heart stopped beating
And we were sent out
As seven doctors and nurses
Went to work to keep her alive
We went back to the waiting room
And in broad
Hesitant strokes
Discussed where she should be buried
Who should be called
What could be done
It was the first time we had had
To talk about these things
For my Mother
Since it was my father
Who had born the brunt of so many operations
And so many expectations
That he would not make it
This time
But my father had always pulled through
In short order
And had never come this close
Relatives shuffled in and out
Food shuffled in and out
Every few hours the doctor came
And told us not to lose hope
But I didn’t see her again that day

When I went home to sleep
Sometime past midnight
I did not expect her to be alive
When I got back

– J.C. Hewitt