Losing my Mother - (Essay w/ poems: Shattered Remains & Peaceful Defeat)

I lost my mother the day before I turned seventeen. She'd had emphysema for years and had actually died and been resuscitated three times while in I.C.U. for six months when I was 12; at which time the doctors told her she'd be lucky to live a another year. She amazed them all and made it five. She was a fighter and possessed one of the strongest characters I've ever known.

Now I've been as long without her as I had with her, and still losing her is hardest thing I've ever been through, including my fathers passing from cancer last fall. He was nearly 69 (missed it by three days!) I was there with him when he died and he told me he was ready. She was 48 and I was not there, but I know she was not ready to go. She wanted to do and experience so much more and not having the breath available to be able to walk a block at the age of 40 stopped her. It hurts not having been able to say good-bye, and it hurts more to think of all she wanted and will never have, because she deserved so much better, so much more.

To this day it's difficult for me to watch people smoke cigarettes. I can't help but wish that they would never experience the outcome my mother did because of them. The eight years she lived in her 40's she was deprived of former abilities, in and out of hospitals and nursing homes, and in constant pain and agony I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. For a small example of this you can read Castle in the Clouds, a short memoir I wrote on living with my mother as her health deteriorated. It's so hard to watch people hurting themselves and not want to smack some sense into them, not violently, but with love. I want people to love themselves enough to know that they don't deserve a life like that and to be smart enough to take the proper precautions to try to avoid such possible calamity.

The two poems in this post are pieces that were written six months after losing my mother. I was a mess. I've since gotten far past this phase of grief they portray. It took time and gaining a more positive perspective. There are times it still hurts like hell and there are still days I still get hit by waves and cry my eyes out. My viewpoint has changed now though, and you can read Eternal Spirit for a taste of that outlook which is thankfully now filled with more gratitude than sorrow. 

Shattered Remains

Desecrate me, my love in death
Enrapture my whole being
With scathing, clenching misery
Leave my soul floating-
Desperate and lonely to freeze
Out lost in the
Extreme limits of outer space

Stuffing down the screams
That have collected in my throat
Questions never to be answered,
Love impossible to be requited
Tears spattering
Staining my mind

I can still feel the hole in my soul
Where all my pain slipped in
Half my reason for living is gone-
Will someone please
Kindly explain
How do I piece together
My shattered remains?

(© A. Bougie 5/14/2001)

Peaceful Defeat

How do I be rid of my sorrows?
Time, give it time,
Time to lay them to rest
Deep in my chest
Let it seethe and breed
Ripping apart my insides
Just to make room for the pain

Simply hold me
In your forgiving arms
I'll absorb the peace of your intentions

Never will I ever be able to forget
Numb is the closest I can now come
To a carefree existence
For the arms I wish to hold me
Are now packaged ashes

Although sometimes
I can feel a presence
Surround me
My physical need
Remains
Without hope
Lacking reassurance

Shuffling slower day by day
Attempting to push through
The bars of alienation
Forced solitude in my lonely cell

Shattered bits of memories
Stabbing repetitively in my mind
While they tell me of the peace I'll find
My strength is an articulate act
A play of pointless deceit
As I stand quiet alongside
Silent witness to the pitiful process
Of my own defeat.

(© A. Bougie 5/22/2001)

I was defeated, but As the Mighty Phoenix from those ashes I rose...