I remember you first as a frail voice through the telephone.
Your son & I had just met and spoke very little of you.
When asked, Ryan would say simply “My mother is very ill.”
Later, I would find secret letters written to you from him:
I love you mommy. I’m sorry you’re sick. please get better, because I’m really scared.
It was Winter when I first met you,
When I met your dog and your husband.
I was nervous and forgot to take my muddied boots off.
When I hugged you I was cold and you were thin;
Skin taught over tiny bones.
After they removed the first lung
We’d take you to chemotherapy
And sit in the waiting room while
babies and mothers and old people
Stared hard at the television set and tried to forget.
It was always idle conversation and
Driving too fast to get home and
That sickening smell of the waiting room that
can’t be washed off.
Later, we’d find you in the garage
With cigarettes between thin fingers
And vague apologies about how you needed it,
sometimes.
Or the smell of pot wafting through air vents
Or the way you drank too much when we’d take you out
For dinner.
Now, it has all been forgiven.
Now we speak in lasts:
“It is Autumn and the leaves are changing.
We should take her for a long ride to Wisconsin.”
Or, the breakfast we shared at the diner
When you ate frantically. The eggs sopped up with
soggy bread and the bacon dissapearing into your stomach.
The last breakfast Ryan and I called it,
Laughing in spite of ourselves.
