Finally, Friendship

On the edge of your bed I sat,
your hot, dust-dry hand in mine,
your ice-blue eyes
just closed against life.

A year before
the uncles had called.
"You're the only one.
She's sick.
She needs help."

"Someone else," I said.
Memories of belts,
fly-swatters,
locked closet doors,
and nightly rope burns on my wrists
flickered through my mind.

"You'll be here tomorrow."

Mom, your dark yellow skin
was a surprise.
Your hatred wasn't.

I re-learned your house,
cooked and cleaned
and remembered
how to let your words
bounce off.

A week later 
your pancreas was gone.

I sat by your hospital bed
and eavesdropped on conversations
with the gremlin in the hall
(the one that was stealing Dad's bourbon).
Terror took over
and after you tried to escape -
nude, IV and NG tubes ripped loose -
I watched as the nurses
tied you to the bed.

I wondered,
did their bondage 
feel the same to you now
as yours did to me at five?

During those hours,
I watched you struggle,
I listened and slowly found someone -
the person under my mother.

The only girl in a large family.
As smart as,
as mean as,
as tough as,
as worthy of pride as
any of the boys.

That girl didn't know me
but she held my hand.
She whispered deep secrets
of her childhood, of her life
to this stranger/daughter. 

After you were home,
your memories of gremlins,
of excursions
in the hospital ceiling
made dad call.

We sat together,
you, dad and me.

"She's crazy," he said.

"No -
Hallucinations are real
if you're the one inside,"
I said.
I saw a change
in your eyes -
a softening
when you looked at me.

Throughout that last year,
you called often.
I learned to call, too.

"I can't talk to him,
he's scared," you said.

We spoke of nothing -
of craziness, kids
and funerals -
brothers, failures,
expectations, truths 
and finally death.

In that year,
I found a friend
in the person
who was my mother.

And in the end,
you waited 'til
your friend was there 
to die.

Kathleen Hover
02/25/02