Güd wrtr

Her father would wince when he’d hear
Mom call us “you guys.” To Grandpa, the father
of two daughters, we were his precious
granddaughters, and this usage
stuck in his craw.

And though we preferred our rubber-toed
tennies (blue for my sister, red for me)
and corduroy pants to dresses and hard-soled
Mary Janes that did us no favors, we suffered
no gender confusion.

But Grandpa liked to tease. He’d type us
letters on his manual Smith Corona that began,
“Hiya, boys,” which made us giggle since he
loved to buy us frilly dresses, worn rarely
with the Mary Janes.

It was a matter of comfort, and our mom—
never a ‘50s TV mom in dress and apron—
knew that well herself, a pedal-pushers
and comfy shoes kind of gal, who was
no pushover.

“Knock it off, you guys!” she’d holler if we
were quibbling. Or “You guys be sure to use
the bathroom before you get in the car.”
Or to move us along: “C’mon, you guys.”

Now we guys tend her in her final days,
lingering around the house more than we have
in years. We guys jumped when she struggled
to move from the recliner that cradled her
fading self. We guys followed her as she
guided her walker down the hall. We guys
helped her choose the bright pink shirt
for our holiday photo.

Now we guys adjust her in the hospital
bed she never wanted. We tuck medication
under her pale tongue that rarely speaks.

“For this you want daughters,” she told me
when she still could.

“Well, it’s good you had two of them,” I said.

She nodded, looking up at me with
mother radar, tuning in the details
of my face that she can no longer see.

“What would I do without you guys?”

What will we guys do without her?

•••

Top photo: Sisters Janis (left) and Donna (right) Haag,
ages about 6 and 4, Orange County, California.

And now before dawn,
a storm rages just
outside the sliding
glass door,

the suddenly bare
branches of our
family trees
shivering, dripping,

as one of us inside
is leaving, one whose
storms once raged
though this house.

She lies quietly now
in the family room
where we all watched
Sullivan and Disney,

occasionally shifting
her much smaller self
in the rented bed,
syllables falling

like raindrops from
her parched mouth:
Donna, Donna, Donna,
and my sister responds,

I’m here, Mom—what do
you need? She can’t say much:
up, achy, help, no.
We move her from side

to back and later to other
side. We change her as we
used to change the babies,
rolling them over to affix

new drawers into which
they can pee, though she
resists this, wants to make
one more slow march down

the hall with the walker,
though the legs that once
jogged and water skied will
no longer support her.

So we do, sitting this vigil
at the family home by the lake,
keeping watch by night
and into a new day,

while outside the window,
something has relented—
stillness after such storm,
the trees finally at rest.

Now there is no going in or going out.
Now there is just here, the final here.

Now there is where she hasn’t wanted
to go. Where a week ago, traveling between

here and gone, pairs of unfamiliar eyes
and the face of a cat danced before hers.

Scary, she said then, through wet butterfly
lashes, seeking reassurance from us as

we used to seek hers when, as children in
this house, we’d awaken scared in the night,

pad down the hall to their room where we
would whisper over her sleeping form,

I had a bad dream. She’d murmur,
It’s just a dream. Go back to sleep.

We would stand, trembling, not wanting
to return to the slender bed alone,

though we did, for a moment,
to retrieve pillow and blanket

to bed down on the floor next to her.
Tonight as she sleeps in the family room,

still breathing but not awakening,
we will sleep in the same room with her.

We hold her hand, saying what we wanted
to hear: It’s OK. You’re safe. We love you.

Fly now, butterfly. You can go.
Fly on home.

It’s hard work, this love
no matter what anyone says.
—Louise Glück

•••

No one tells you that,
besides all the little things
the dying need help with,
it’s hard work tending
the one on her way,

the one who will not
give up, give in, even as
her bright light fades,
determined to go on, even as
her body has other ideas.

You’re here to focus on her,
but scenes from growing up
in this house flicker like the end
of an old film, as you sit this vigil,
keep watch by night in this season
of waiting.

You want to pray and sing and
praise. You want to be a lantern
of encouragement, as you wipe
and adjust, bring water, bring pills,
try to comfort the uncomfortable.
You tend to that which can no
longer be easily contained or
flushed or ignored.

Until, after weeks of agitation,
she falls silent. And the colors
of waiting now take on a more
muted hue.

It’s the height of indignity,
this dying after a long life,
this love, but you have said yes
to the witnessing, the tending,
this most important work,

some of the very heartest
that you—and she—
will ever do.

When it’s cool and sunny,
heading toward the end of the year.
Everything in place. Having had
one last vanilla shake, eyes closed,
relishing the creaminess going down
a parched throat.

Trees still releasing the last
of their bounty, some already
bare, their slender limbs reaching,
always, for the blue.

It’s a good day to die, as our friend
the obituary writer used to say when he
had lots of space to fill in the newspaper,
so he could give people a really good
sendoff.

Just look at this world—
calm and bright, clean and light.
And look, just there, through the veil,
you can see the smiling eyes
of those who wait,

friendly beings, who, on a slight
whoosh of breeze, extend their arms,
waving, who look so happy to greet you.

I wish I understood the beauty
in leaves falling. To whom
are we beautiful
as we go?

—David Ignatow, from “Three in Translation”

This leaving is not pretty.
We see it every fall—the browning,
the brittling, the green sucked
from what only months ago
was supple and vibrant.

Some showoffs glisten crimson;
the ginkgo fans go gold, but to us
they are beautiful.

To whom are we beautiful as we go?

Not remotely who we once were,
we desiccate before the eyes
of loved ones, who would rather
look away, who hate watching
the suffering that comes with
the ending of a life.

We cannot blame them, but
still, we look for the one who
long ago found us beautiful,
who adored us, the one who
late at night whispered,

“Come to bed now,”
the one who held the sheet
open, a waiting angel,
eager to envelop us in
those voluminous wings.

And we went. We went
and went again—
so happy to be loved
like that.

•••

(With thanks to poet Marie Howe for her inspiration.)

Before you go,
what would you
like to hear?

Certainly some
good barbershop
harmony sung

by strong voices
like yours used
to be, and his.

Maybe a bit of
John Denver,
whose songs

you played again
and again on the
eight-track tapes

in the car—taking
you home down
country roads—

in your own
traveling jukebox
on wheels.

And I would play
you blackbird
singing in the dead

of night, your
late-in-life affection
for the Beatles

coinciding with
mine. Take these
broken wings…

You’re closer now,
You who are only
waiting for this

moment to arise.
It’s closer now.
We both feel it

as a new day
gentles the sky,
as birds we

can’t see sing
outside the
windows

in trees baring
themselves
for winter.

She’s a 74-year-old gal who’s
just laid an egg—literally—

on an island called Midway
in the middle of the sea where

her kind fly in to do just that—
have babies. Wisdom seems

to have outlived three mates,
this albatross whom humans

wait to see each year,
the oldest known wild bird,

who has birthed more than
30 chicks since 1956.

And if that’s not a testament to
the wisdom of a long, productive life,

to the I’m-not-done-yet spirit
of the 93-year-old mother I know

who’s not giving up, who’s
hunkering down in the nest

where she raised her young, where
she watched us fledge and fly,

before she fluffs her feathers
and takes off for parts unknown,

I don’t know what is.

(after William Carlos Williams’ “The Dance”)

(for Donna Gail)

Brightly colored gumballs fill glass-globed
dispensers that bring me to stand again
with my little sister before a row of primary
color temptations. Which one should receive our
precious pennies? What if we get a color we don’t like?
(Definitely not black!) Here we learn that,
even when not given a choice, sweetness
will appear with the simple turn of a knob,
the lift of a magical chrome door, allowing
a surprise to roll into our cupped palms.

Juicy crescent
hangs low in the inky
western sky

tempting to pop
in the mouth as hungry
winter chases

autumn’s last leaves
still hanging onto
a bit of sweetness

before the fall