I Believe

John woke up groggy Wednesday morning but was focused on the promise we made him to get him down to see our boy, Mikey, in the PCPA production of Peter Pan.  He kept trying to get up, and wanted to get going, hours before the show started.  I was having some hesitation about it because he seemed so tired, but I could see how much it meant to him.  So son John, and good friend, Mike, bundled him into the wheelchair and off we went. 

I was in tears even before Wendy, Michael, and John left the nursery.  It was the "happy thoughts" that got me going and the flying did me in.  Our own Michael was terrific as Slightly Soiled, one of the lost boys, his hair wild and tousled before Wendy arrives, and combed neatly in the scene after she agrees to be "mother" to the lost boys.  It is really a wonderful production and the story has special meaning on many levels.  I was watching John closely and could see how he was struggling to even sit up, but now and then he beamed a smile and clapped his hands.  We had to leave after the first act because I could see he was fading fast, but our mission was accomplished. 

As soon as we got home, John wanted to go to bed, and the next day marked a dramatic change in his activity level.  He spent most of the day in bed and only made a few attempts to speak.  By last night, he was mostly sleeping and when he was awake, he was restless and showing the first signs of serious pain. 

Hospice nurses responded quickly, and family and friends gathered last night to make sure John knew he was surrounded with love.  He has been sleeping all day today.  His pain is managed but he has been unable to even open his eyes.   He seems peaceful but his breathing is labored at times. He has stopped eating and drinking and is unable to swallow.  We have had a quiet afternoon together which was welcome after so much activity over the last couple of weeks.  We listened to music, I talked to him, and read some of his poetry.  Mostly I just held his hand and listened to him breathe. 

He wrote these poems last month but didn't show them to me.  I found them as I was looking through some of his other poems.  Here they are.

Angel
Would that we could

have kept that angel,
the one that sat on our shoulders
as we wobbled through that toddler age,
missing table corners and open drawers
by whiskers, angel fingers taking the hits
for our soft little baby heads.
We zigged and zagged, the road
a mine field, trouble at every turn,
and yet here we are.
But now, the angel is gone,
and I miss mine at every fork,
every misstepped road.




Who I Was



There was a time,
in my youth,
when I was the flash of lightning you didn’t see,
except that the room lit up.
I was the scent of pine trees and sage
riding in on a hot wind from the south.
You smelled it and it was sweet but vague.
I was the river that you could not ford,
and the forest of Bishop pine and redwoods,
the paw prints in the forest by the stream.
I was all the honey and cinnamon and mustard,
fresia and roses and periwinkle, cats and dogs and birds,
but of course they all were consumed.
Now I am here, stripped of my nature,
just pain and bleeding and heartache,
reaching out to my death with
weak and mangled hands,
not wanting to touch it,
yet reaching and reaching.


I believe



If I could believe in
Heaven and Hell,
I would be very scared to die.
If God is within me,
all knowing, all powerful, all present,
incomprehensible,
should God be feared?
I was raised to believe
my soul will burn in eternal damnation,
what a thing to believe, I cannot do it.
I choose to believe
I will tour the universe, God within me,
freed of my mortal bounds.



John had often talked about "touring the universe" and not long ago I asked him if he was afraid of death.  He said he wasn't, without hesitation.  I think he believes as Peter Pan does, that "To die, will be an awfully big adventure."