My Last Patient

Deb died of Lou Gehrig's disease age 37

Deb.........Deb.......Deb!
Are you there?

She laid among stillness
Her breath barely a dream
Her husband and children
waiting for her fall among tall redwoods
in an ancient ritual of Lou Gehrig's disease.

Her husband a tower of strength
in metaphorical and literal ways
He showed me the ice cream wedding
That they found together on that blessed day.

When two little girls gave me their grin
I wanted to take her place among the dead
So she could love the little ones.
I cared and cared for her everyday
but nothing could I do in a miraculous way.

She cease to breathe on a morning in Autumn
Like leaves from the trees she fell from the altar.
With a sorrow painted across the season's sky
I gave my poem to a family a stranger could love.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

having just recently lost my best friend from college to this disease...this one made me tear up.

[Avinash]

I must say Al, you have done the toughest job on earth and one of the bravest men I have come across. How many of us are able to embrace other's pain not just in words but in flesh and bones.