March 6: Nursing Home, Rita Dove, "Your Death"

Last night, my sister--early fifties, photographic memory, stubborn as an iceberg--was transferred from the hospital to a nursing home.  She certainly didn't want to go there, but I think she also knows it was the only real alternative that would keep her safe.  That's doesn't make it any easier.

I've been thinking about her all day.  A year ago, she was in charge of an outpatient surgery center, supervising around ten employees.  She knew every aspect of the place, from registering the patients to sterilizing the instruments to circulating the operating room.  She was someone who solved problems, helped people.  Now, she can't even get out of bed by herself.

I'm telling myself this is a temporary situation.  She'll get better and soon be able to come home.  But she will be unemployed.  Probably on disability.  And the surgery center, which she literally built from blueprints to grand opening, will be under another person's direction.

There's no happily ever after in this post. No punchline.  Sorry.

Saint Marty doesn't even have a happy Rita Dove poem tonight.

Your Death

by:  Rita Dove

On the day that will always belong to you,
lunar clockwork had faltered
and I was certain.  Walking
the streets of Manhattan I thought:
Remember this day.  I felt already
like an urn, filling with wine.

To celebrate, your son and I
took a stroll through Bloomingdale's
where he developed a headache
among the copper skillets and
tiers of collapsible baskets.
Pain tracked us through
the china, driving us
finally to the subway
and home,

where the phone was ringing
with bad news.  Even now,
my new daughter
asleep in the crib, I can't shake
the moment his headache stopped
and the day changed ownership.
I felt robbed.  Even the first
bite of the tuna fish sandwich
I had bought at the corner
became yours.

Not tonight, anyway