A Prayer for the Early Morning
By: Amy Claire Massingale
He was very nearly gone from this world,
And still the nurse
Called for an enema.
I put a stop to that shit.
Just as I put a stop to forced feedings
And the drinking of juice,
When he shook his head furiously,
No.
His digestive system was
Shrinking slowly,
A dry leaf in autumn,
Curling in on itself.
To abstain was either choice,
Or a forgotten skill.
It was also
His right.
We feasted on love.
I sat at his bedside and his eyes,
So luminous in his gaunt face.
That I could not look away.
I took his frail hand,
With the humble wedding band.
His teaching me to ride a bike,
Shotgun in the old Buick,
My childhood, seen from both of us,
Flashing like a dream.
We were getting close now, I could feel it,
Could feel the tender shimmering membrane
Separating us from the other side,
It pulsed with purity,
and it felt
Like birth.
As morning broke the horizon
Of the nighttime vigil
The membrane became thin.
The thinner it became,
The more full his eyes.
Locked with mine,
An embrace.
He had not spoken in months
But his eyes, oh his eyes.
The velvet brown of them,
Their holy light.
His eyes said I love you,
And thank you
Together, and at once.
Tears streamed from my own and I
Could only nod.
And smile with the joy of having known him
This was no place for speaking words.
We floated there it seemed,
Not quite in the other realm,
Where the light awaited him.
But no longer in this one either.
The air in the room shifted,
felt saturated
And everything outside it
felt faded.
His body, which had suffered so,
The brain which had turned.
Prisons breached,
Ready for rest.
He took a deep breath, a lunge forward
Then gently and filled with grace,
Exhaled.
Amy Claire Massingale is a poet and author whose work has been published in The New York Times and in several literary journals. A passionate advocate for seniors and people living with dementia, Amy volunteers as an educator for the Alzheimer’s Association and has launched several creative initiatives to combat the isolation of seniors in long term care. She is currently working on a book about aging and innovation. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, two children, two cats and one dog.