When you died it was your hands that got me.
Your kidneys failed.
Your hands swelled up.
Those were never your hands.
They were your hands
But they were never your hands.
I held them tight, in the moment
For letting go. I had to learn then
To let you go.
When all you had to do to save yourself
Was sit in the chair,
Don’t move,
Ring your bell if you need to move
And we’ll help you, but with your compulsion
You stood up
Time after time,
For the door, for the toilet, a surge for any sudden urge,
And it was standing the last time that made you fall,
Falling broke your hip, breaking your hip
Killed you. I had to learn then
To let you be impulsive. To let you stand.
When you shit yourself the first time
At 3 in the morning
And your alarm went off
And I found you there on the floor
Diarrhoea down your legs and up your back
And I washed you in the shower
And you laughed and laughed,
The first time I didn’t find it funny
Not the least little bit.
A carer shouldn't be angry. A carer shouldn't
Shudder at the task. I shuddered. At first.
A carer shouldn't be angry. A carer shouldn't
Shudder at the task. I shuddered. At first.
But by the hundredth, sure, I had to learn then
To find it funny too.
When you choked near to death over your food
And had a pipe inserted into your belly,
Fed liquid through a tube, that strange mouth
At your centre suckling a plastic teat,
When you lost all power of speech
And I forgot your singing voice
And your catchphrases and jokes
And your canny knack for avoiding direct questions
Or any talk of feelings, I had to learn then
To listen to the language of your eyes,
A language of hands and thumbs.
I had to learn to speak for you.
When they diagnosed you, when they told me you’d die,
I had to learn the death sentence was not for me.
I had to learn, selfish child, this was not about me.
If I had known then all that would happen
All that you would need
All that you would need me to be,
I should have fled your need,
Too great a need to do all at once
All that had to be done. I had to learn then
Not to do it all at once, only day by day.
The world taught me and you taught me.
I had to learn to be with you,
The world taught me and you taught me.
I had to learn to be with you,
No matter how you changed.
Looking back, I look at it backwards. The YOU
You were emerges from the chrysalis of who
You became. The memory runs backwards, coiling
Itself back up into the moment when
I should have done something, I should have
I should have done something, I should have
Saved you, I should have prevented all this.
You’d shrug your shoulders at that. Nothing
I could have done, unrepentant narcissist son
Of the humble, philosophical father.
Looking back, you were always that man. You did not become
Something. You were revealed. I took you in
The more you changed. I learned then
To look with open eyes,
To see the hard bright truth you polished free
Of all pretence in those swollen hands.
No matter how you changed, you changed
From the man I loved
Into the man I adored.
