Among a snowbank
of hospital blankets
she lay as still
and as small as
I’d ever seen
this giant of a woman
who would forever be
my greatest love
my worst adversary
my ultimate teacher
my most wounded heart
my everything…
my mother
Her heart it seems
tried to dubstep
not so good it appears
if you’re all of 77
so there she lay
sleeping off the happy
shot of the heart cath
while I tried to slow
the galloping terrors
that my own heart
insisted upon riding
from the moment the
call came to me as
I sat at my desk over
900 miles away from
the scene of her heart’s
misadventure that
had detoured
her planned excursion
to Sonny’s bar-b-q
her favorite place
for ribs
I stroked her hair that
was no longer the shade
of black that had often
seemed to be blue
in some winks of light
now with the years
becoming a crown
of elder's grey
I wanted to climb into
the very bed with her
to calm my roiling fears
to reassure us both
that it would be alright
instead I stood with her
hand wrapped in mine
She awoke at my touch
and admonished me
for having come so far
insisting that she was
more than fine that it
had only been a hiccup
but I knew I saw it in her
eyes what it meant that
I was there that I wanted
to be right there
We've a complicated
story - she and I
one of gargantuan
mistakes and almost
irreconcilable offenses
filled with unimaginable
pain and longing that
that in times past I’d
never dared to hope that
we’d recover from it all
yet somehow…we did
albeit in our twilight
My mom and I are
a testimony to the power
of the heart and its
ability to heal against
insurmountable odds
I reminded myself of this
as I leaned in and
kissed her cheek
and I told her
“Hey pretty gurl
don’t you worry
we got this”
Randi M. Romo (c) 2/2014
