It was cold (even inside ourselves).
It was wet (but our tears froze –like crystalline webs on windshields– halfway down our cheeks).
And the only sunshine in the room was fluorescent…and faint…
and fake.
We gazed helplessly, we guarded hopelessly
as the cancerous ice spread like wildfire through her veins.
And we refused the lure of warm, sleepy dreams
only to watch her fade away.

Is cancer a sin? Because I remember a pastor said:

in every saint’s past, a sinner dies…
and no one ever questioned why.    
But amidst the chaos, heartache, lies,
I bid her winter a heartfelt goodbye.

And welcomed spring and all its rain
to cleanse my ache, my loss, away.
Just as surely as the sun breaks snow, dead trees regrow,
and I know
that somewhere, there, where she’s a saint,
she sings for hope that winter’s passed –and finally,
it’s Spring.