Portrait I
I enter this room
unsure of myself,
somehow this environ
is not where I belong;
A family, here, before me
lives on, as their
tragedy unfolds...
Call bells ring,
other patients cry out
in some diseased confusion -
Outside, traffic stirs, that
noise muted
beyond our halls & walls...
Life, and its intimations.
A family, here,
says good-bye.
Reminisces on
what their departing member
had said, ealier in this day;
The slight one,
with the short red hair,
says:
"He hummed that song
this morning,
the one he always sings
in the kitchen..."
The fair one, with her
bobbed brown locks
says:
"I know why
the eyes open wide
at that last moment;
they see Jesus, and
don't want to look anywhere else..."
The son,
quiet and tremulous
in his grief,
nods -
acquiescent now
to whatever is said...
They are gathered
willingly - yet
not for what was expected;
none quiet comprehending
that Death has
made this visit
when, just this morn,
their father was
as he had been
everyday...
I stand, then react -
awkward in my attempts
at consolation:
bringing cups of water,
and cool cloths
for faces wet and reddened
as sadness springs
in rivulets of tears.
I only know
this one photograph:
the faces, the action
within this one still frame...
They knew the life,
all of the pictures:
moving, and colored
by the
Union of Family,
that closeness borne
of blood and bonds...
(c)K.E.Cline, 15 February 1996
(At this time in my life, I had been an OB nurse for 11 years. I had not worked on a med/surg floor nor experienced the death of an adult patient in quite a long while. I had been "floated" to a "foreign" floor this night-shift, as there were no patients in our birthing unit. I witnessed, then, the death of a not-so-elderly man and experienced the grief of his family...)