The little room was suffocating
I sat there with my sister Suz, my brother-in-law Dick,
and the shell of my sister Peggy
I wouldn’t have known it was Peggy in the bed
if Suz hadn’t also been there
I hadn’t seen Dick in 28 years; he’d changed,
looked like Grizzly Adams after a month in the woods alone
And Peggy? She didn’t look like anyone I knew
The last time I’d seen her she didn’t look too bad
And she had been hopeful, ready to fight and win again
But she wasn’t going to win this time
She would breathe her last in that tiny, sterile room
I’m not a fan of hospitals or of cancer
Twice when I was young my mom went into the hospital with cancer
She’d survived but her hospital rooms were no more pleasant than this one
As I listened to the beeping of the machines
Feeling the oppressive pall in the room
My mind drifted to memories of my dear sister
Of how she always called me Sweetie
Oh how I wanted Peggy to open her eyes right then and say,
It’s okay, Sweetie
But it wasn’t okay
She wasn’t going to wake up and reassure me
I’d never again hear her voice
As darkness descended outside the window,
It crept into the room as an impending doom
And we waited, quieter now
The quiet in the room became noticeably quieter as Peggy stopped breathing
At that moment I prayed that God knew her heart
I prayed that if she had not been a believer, as Dick said,
That Jesus would have come to her in her sleep, in her dreams, and called her soul home
I prayed that I would hear her voice again someday in Heaven
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I’ve already posted my Lenten poem for today, but the dVerse Poets Pub prompt for today was to write about a room or a memory involving a room, and I immediately thought of a chapter I had previously written about my sister’s death. I decided to take that chapter and reduce it to focus on the room. I was going to save it to post and link tomorrow, but I changed my mind once it was done.