the water pressed between gum and teeth--
she did not want the prolonging of an
inevitability... death, she said,
is a part of living, as much as new teeth,
zits, and menstrual cycles
the body eventually rebels against you
or wears out, but either one, you can't
stay in this life in this body forever
you have to move on when the time comes
and the time will come
and it will announce itself with pangs and
disease that refuse to be thwarted
by treatment, and sooner or later you
will have to quit wrestling death--
you only get to cheat death so often,
mommy would say
and when it was her time, she didn't
even push back much--"growing old
is hard," she said, and "it's rougher
than you know." But when death
became her companion, before she
drew her final breaths, she turned
her face to the wall, sighed deep
longing and prayed in the ways that
dementia and tremors allow--
she shook her moanings to heaven--
she found her way to a thin line
that space between here and there
and crossed it, graciously
she wanted nothing of heroics
of trying to stay on this plane
she believed life would find her
again and told us often enough
she taught us to die as much
as she taught us to live
and when she signed her "do not
resuscitate" it was because she
knew there was something better:
"I actually believe in the resurrection"
she said, so dying was just a stop
along the way
© Valerie Bridgeman
May 7, 2013
My mommy, Bernice O'Neal McKinney Bridgeman (aka da B.O.M.B.), died May 7, 2002.
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