Email

Archives

Poems

HAC

The Valley

Seven Angels

Links

Ev is going "Home"

      Ev's door is allways open now.
      Today she greets me with,
      "That's it, no more treatments.
      All those tumours - let them be." 	
      
      Shocked, I say, "You're so brave."
      She looks at me with a light in her eyes -
      something that was not there six months ago.
      "I've lived a long life. I'm ready to go."
      "You've come to acceptance," I venture.
      "Yes, I've accepted it." She pauses and smiles.
      
      "I think I'll give my new leather coat to Lill.
      She's been so good bringing meals and all.
      You know what I did at 4 o'clock this morning?"
      she continues with a twinkle in her sunken eyes.
      "No, what?"
      "You remember the big old bear Bob gave me?
      I took it down stairs with a pair of scissors
      and cut it open and took all the stuffing out
      and then I cut it all to pieces."
      "You did what?"
      "No one is getting it. He gave it to me 50 years
      ago so I decided if I'm going, so is the bear."
  
      We laugh. We laugh a lot lately. We laughed the
      day she told me she had glued her locket shut.
      "No one is going to see what's in there!"
      she had giggled. 

      She swings her thin legs over the edge of her bed
      and we wander through her little house.
      We look at old faded pictures on the wall:
      her parents, her husband, a landscape...

      She hoist her small frame back into bed.
      "I'll stay home as long as I can." 
      "That's probably best for you," I say.
      "Lill has offered to come in and clean etc."
        
      We read a page from a new devotional book.
      It "happens" to be about dying and flying
      Home to heaven.
      She reaches up for a hug. I gently enfold
      her bony body in my arms and whisper,	
      "I'll check on you again tomorrow."
      "Door's open," she smiles.
      "Yes, I know." 
      
      "Good night, my dear."
      "Good night."


    
      BACK TO:  ARCHIVES