Granddad

Creeping with the mists of time, comes death with bated breath and eager eye, lingering now upon the corner, leaning here or there, layed back upon the sofa, he has a soul to collect and time on his hands.

That summer, now so long ago, still fresh with in my mind, that you and I spent together, cutting lawns, and that hedge that ran for miles and miles. A-Levels, over waiting for university to start to escape this place that was my life, you had broken your arm, fighting with some local kids, abusing the neighbour hood, abusing you, never one to be messed with, even in later years, armed with baseball bat, to combat went…. “I may have bust my wrist……” you said, “but I broken his arm”….. How I wish you could pick up that baseball bat now, how I wish you could fight once more.

Instead laying lost, trapped in a body that’s given up, laying in a bed, unable to speak. The pneumonia wasnt enough, always a tough nut, a lovable rouge with a heart of gold for all that’s pure and right, if often a little too opinionated! Even the first stoke couldn’t knock you down, day by day your strength cam back, with the promise of a move to closer grounds, but then the twisted knife of fate struck once more and washed you over with a second stroke, that knocked you down, and stole your words, your movement to.

I came to see you in the hospital and found a stranger in your place, a frail old man, lost inside himself, you knew I was there, but I couldn’t stay it hurt too much. I came other times while you slept, and whilst you were awake, I know you knew I was there, I wonder now if you remember that summer from long ago, that through all the years and miles of my own life, has stayed with me, only happy memory’s from childhoods dream I carry. That time we spent together, when all around me was bad, a constant in a world of unknowns.

True to the end you know your own mind, it baffled the nurses how your feeding tubes kept coming out, how the drip kept coming from your arm, but you had made up your mind, time to go, always the fighter right to the end. Family fights once more around the bed, everyone forgets about you, laying there on the edge of tomorrow, but at last we got you home to wait for death to call.

The tears that fell from your eyes, when at last you came home, tears of happiness, your body may have given up but I know you are still there. The nights now I sit with you and wait for daylights call, I know its uncomfortable for you, as I changing soiled pads, feed you, offer you drinks, but I know that through these last days or weeks your home, where you want to be and you know we care.

I wish that you could speak once more, just a few words…. for years we wanted to shut you up…. and now all we want is for you to speak once more, tell us your thoughts.

Thank you for that time, that summer many moons ago, for being the solid, in a unsoilid world.

For me, I am back where I began all those years ago, back in the place I have spent a life time running from and somehow never managed to escape. May be facing ghosts that should have laid to rest, may be chasing a dream of a reality far beyond my grasp, seeking understanding.

I have just been offered a new job, at long last! The possibility also falls now for another one Monday, may be now as your light dims and sleep begins to fall, the wheels will change and the cogs will move. May your last days be filled with the light you have given so freely all your life, and when that final sleep falls, it come with peace and light.

~ by Duma Key on February 26, 2010.