3 posts tagged “death”

He falls
Into the icy water
As it moves
So rapidly
Impossible for him to survive.

Time seemed to move,
At a much slower pace,
As he fell from the edge,
So far down,
To the water.

Like a video,
Stopping for a long moment,
As each frame passed.

And then,
Like a reaction of a chain,
Being whipped about,
I followed.

Falling,
Far and fast,
Yet slow and peacefully.

So terrified,
Waiting for the icy chill,
Of the water's rapid movement,
To tear me away,
From the life I knew.

As he and I hit the water,
We seem to be absorbed into it,
Become one with it,
And its icy chill becomes part of us.

Impossible to survive.

By David Worley

Author's note: This post was not meant to frighten you. It is not symbolic to my current emotional state. It is a metaphor. Of life, and of death. Life is the time between the fall, and the water. Death, is the absorption into the water.
Why did I write in the first person narrative? I don't know.
Why did I include another subject in the poem? I don't know that either.
I am simply writing, a metaphor, for life, and death, and the randomnity of it.
Is randomnity a word? No. But I made it one anyway.

Thank you and goodnight.
-David

January 13th 2008

It seems like just a few days ago that my own father’s mother passed on. My grandmother. But it was already more than 4 months ago now. Still, what they say about things getting better with time, it’s not true. The pain is still there, as much as it ever was, and probably as much as it ever will be. What is true, is its easier to ignore the pain after time. You sort of build a tolerance to it, much like to physical pain. But that doesn’t stop the pain altogether.

And just this short time after my grandmother has died, I am aware of, and alerted to the fact that my step father’s own mother who has been terminally ill with lung cancer for well over a year now who has made it much longer than any of us expected her to, is probably going to die in a few days.
I shed my tears the day that we found out she had cancer, and I have started to shed them again tonight. It is obviously yet to be seen whether I’ll be able to shed them at the time of her death or not.

I still remember wanting and wishing for the ability to cry the day that my grandmother died, and I don’t like that feeling of the inability to grieve like I’d like to.
I want to hold it together for my step grandmother though. Mumpie. Oma. Both are her names to me. I love her so dearly. I hate to see her go. She’s been as much of a grandmother as much as my biological grandmothers have been to me for the last 9 years.

It’s killing me now to see her suffer like this. She’s not in as much pain as one would expect, but she’s so unhappy. I know that once she’s gone, she will be in peace, but I hate to see her suffer like this her last few days.

And I hate to see the pain and suffering of the heart that my step dad is going through as well. This must be so hard for him, to lose a parent. It must be hard for anyone to lose a parent. I’ve not had the unfortunate experience of going through that loss yet. And I don’t hope to any time soon.

It really is so hard for me to handle this just shortly after my other grandmother’s death, and my mom and step-dad’s divorce. It’s hard to handle one thing. To have it all happen in fairly short - ok I realize it’s been more like 4 months but still, that’s not that long in the grand scheme of things - succession is nearly impossible.

As I write this, I’m again thinking of the future. Thinking of what the future will be like without this wonderful woman who I know as a grandmother in my life. And I am horrified.

Again, as in another entry to my blog, I am nostalgic, remembering the past, and wishing that I were there. Worry-free, happy, and content. And I dread the future, still and again, as mentioned in that post.

I’m terrified, and torn, again and again, torn, right through the heart. I’m not sobbing yet, but I imagine by the time I actually post this I will be.
I’m also fearful that tonight’s sobs are the only tears I’ll be able to shed for this event. I don’t want that to happen. I want to be able to cry at the funeral, I want to be able to cry when she dies, I want to be able to cry a year from now remembering this.

But I don’t know if I’ll be able to cry about this after tonight, and that too frightens me.

Anyway, I’m pretty much done with my emotional rant. I wanted to write this down now so that I got my thoughts and emotions out on the table now before my mind suppressed them. I know that the thoughts here are disorganized, but I think the message is still clear.

Thanks,
-David.

Pretty straight forward for any who follow my blog. My grandmother died last night. We've been sort of expecting this for a few days now.

She had pneumonia so they decided to take her breathing tube out, and her oxygen levels decreased gradually through yesterday and last night.
Apparently my family had been there at the hospital, taking it in turns to watch her and be with her, and at around 4:15 in the morning, she went to sleep, and never woke up. She died. A painless death thankfully.

I'm sort of numb right now. Not feeling any pain. It was very hard for me to cope with on the day I found out that she was expected to die, I suppose because I didn't see it coming, and had to say goodbye to her. Well, I didn't have to, but I chose to. Anyway, so today, it was still a shock, but it wasn't unexpected. I'd been waiting for the phone call since we found out. Each time I got a call from my aunt or my dad or my sister, I expected it to be "Gramma died."
But until today, nothing. Then at around 7ish in the morning, my aunt called looking for a way to contact my step dad so that she could tell him to come home and talk to me and tell me what happened.
So, he did. He told me, and I thought that I would cry, but I didn't. No tears have been shed over my grandmother since the night I said my goodbyes to her.
I feel sad I guess, well no I don't guess, I know I do. But it's not really affecting me. And I also feel angry. Not really at anything specific, except that I hadn't gotten to see my grandmother more than I did, and at not being able to say more to her when I said goodbye than I did.

A little less than three years ago, my other grandmother - my mom's mom - died as well. I barely shed tears that night either. I'd cried a little when I found out she had cancer, and a little the night she died. But it seems that my emotions tend to stay inside even if I want to be able to voice them - well, I can voice them obviously because I'm writing them here for the world to see - but I'd like to be able to cry when I feel sad like this.

I don't know why. I'm just not really able to cry for the moment. Maybe I'll be able to shed some tears later tonight, or perhaps even just in a few minutes. Maybe my emotion and ability to cry will be finally triggered by the right thought of my grandmother, or maybe it won't happen until I'm able to understand this feeling more.

I'm just really confused about how I feel right now, and why I don't shed tears very often about this sort of thing.

I think that it helps me some to write this where people have the option to read and find out how I feel, but at the same time, I'm not forcing my feelings on other people to hear me whine and moan and theorize about why I feel the way I do, this way it's optional for people to read it or not, and I still get my feelings out there and voiced.

Anyway, that's all I really feel like saying for now. If I feel like it, I might add some other literary works dedicated to my grandmother later. But for now, this is it.
Thanks for reading, if you did.
-David