I dreamed of you again last night.

You were a just a boy,

eyes bright with promise,

and hope.

I hugged your small body to mine,

then held you out with my hands to look at you,

to take in all that I can no longer see

in my waking life.

I told you how much I miss you,

and asked when I could see you again.

You did not answer,

You just smiled at me with that

impish grin I know so well,

and my heart swelled full

with all the love I feel for you,

and the fathomless gratitude,

for the grace that twined our lives together.

You lay before me, so still

Skin pallid, and lips the blue of twilight.

Your face inaminate,

No quirked eyebrow or mischievous smile.

Your absence is still incomprehensible

In the light of this terrible morning.

I kiss your cool forehead,

Thinking of the trials and turmoil,

Of  this path of pain we travelled together.

When everyone left, it was always you and I who remained,

to weather the storms of illness, or some new loss from your traitorous genes.

And here we are again my love.

I always said I would do anything for you,

From love, and for steadfast presence in all the difficult moments.

So I begin this, knowing only that it is a testament

Of my love for you.

Slowly, I bend to reach the basin,

Warm, soapy water slipping through my trembling fingers.

Washing your skin, tenderly, touching every scar.

Removing the tracheostomy tube, and the g-tube you hated so much

Wanting every artificial adjunct to your life

Out of your tortured body.

I would not, could not leave you now,

In these last moments together, that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I will know that we had this time,

That I held you once again, as I did on that morning 20 years ago,

When we were still innocent and unknowing,

And our joy was untouched by sorrow.

Maybe if you are very sensitive,

Mourning must tear you apart,

And fling the pieces far away,

Leaving you broken for a time,

Difficult, defensive, vulnerable, fragile,

Until enough time passes

for the ground of your being to

Become fertile again in darkness,

To draw its’ precious nutrients into your heart,

To fill your empty breasts that still ache with remembrance,

So that you may start to rise,

To stand, tenuously at first,

Then stronger,

To take the first steps on the path,

To find yourself again.

Grief is an empty well,

where the voice of the beloved echoes

but cannot be answered.

Grief is the silent sky,

after lightening cracks open the heavens,

and thunder shakes the earth.

Grief is grasping,

for something you can no longer hold,

that is just out of reach.

Grief is heavy,

austere and grim as a Puritan zealot,

who sees joy as sin.

Grief, harsh teacher, bitter companion,

who steals the treasure of hope,

who must be endured, the consequence of immeasurable love.

I don’t know how to say goodbye to you my dearest

and I don’t know how to greet a life without you.

Dew fogs the grass as the pink light of sunrise

floods through the windows.

I listen for the sounds of you in this still morning

the quiet of your absence surrounding me.

You are everywhere and nowhere,

waiting in still and silent moments, patient with the

futile busyness that keeps my pain at bay.

My sweet and gentle boy,

how we laughed and cried together at the absurdities

and cruelties of your life,

and at the frailties of your human keepers.

In weaker moments I beg you to return to me,

selfish, I know my darling, to ask

knowing the brutality of your final days with us,

the torment and tumult of those precious hours.

And still, you come to me, like a breath, like a pulse,

as the sighs and tears move through me

and I remember how you protected me

your facile, fragile mother,

and let me sleep beside you, let me hold you one last time

in the clinical light of the hospital monitors.