Wednesday, June 22, 2011

A Night in a Paris Hotel

We held a midnight vigil.
Them by her side, me by the phone.
Each breath I breathed I slowed . . . 
wondering if it was the last of her own.

Ever slowed your breathing?  It feels like drowning.

They couldn't talk to her, but I did
in my memories, my thoughts, my prayer.
Even if I wasn't there,
we conversed.

To watch a woman once so strong,
so alive, slowly die... it was hard.
I wondered if she'd been dying for years,
inside.

The hardest part of life for the healthy is dying;
yet, for the dying, the struggle to breathe, to pump that last heart one last time...
the hardest part of life for the dying is living.  

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