I do not understand this word

This word that brings so much grief

I do not understand with it means to be sick with it

Though I do know its nothing like the flu



I do not understand why my family grieves

She’ll be ok, won’t she?

She’ll live to an old age

She’ll always be there when I need her



I notice and wonder why she loses her hair

I wonder why I cannot be around her when I am sick

Even with it is only a small cold

I wonder why she spends so much time at the doctor



Yet, she always seems herself

Happy with her life

Always joyful when I see her

Always happy in her sickness



I begin to understand, though

That they have labeled her with an expiration date

I do not want to believe that she won’t always be there

But I do begin to understand the meaning of the word



Yet she lives many more years

More than the number they have given her

She lives happily and always in good health

And soon I begin to forget



Many more years pass

I begin to believe the sickness has passes

No one ever speaks of it

The sickness that has faded



But then I am reminded

How fast things can change

How fast they can change from being perfect

To the worst thing imaginable



This sickness that had laid dormant

Woke to its call

It begins to thrive again

Spreading uncontrollably



The life that had been so bright

As bright as the stars shinning high in the sky

Begins to dim

Begins to change to something else



She is no longer herself

A cause of the sickness

She acts strangely

Doing things her opposite would do



Soon her light begins to fade

It darkens as if being smothered

Smothered by the darkness

The darkness that spreads inside of her



But as her light flickers

She is allowed to be herself one more time

She takes the hand of the man sitting by her bed

The hand of her son



She smiles at me, a smile without fear

He knows she is there, aware

She squeezes his hand and then her eyes clothes

And she drifts into a long needed sleep