In the bungalow on Bainbridge Loop

a family prepares to mourn

The living room has become a waiting room

as the bedroom has yet to house a deathbed

The woman lying there is not what she once was

Disease now tarnishes her person,

her prior self never to return,

it awaits the rest of her somewhere beyond

The family whispers a thousand drawn out goodbyes

Impatience creeping into their intonations over weeks

The grandfather has become changed too

His tired words break and dissolve into the tears that tell us

he is too old to begin such a new chapter of his life, 

he has never been an adult without his wife.

His children hover,

ever near their mother, 

restless,

hands stirring pots of regret and uncertainty

served up at a quiet table. 

All five strung out like so many ropes,

energy running low and tensions running high.

The little boy sits amongst it all,

oblivious to the pain of the world around him.

He has yet to learn that life is never easy, 

that it takes what it wants and shafts you whenever it can,

and the only thing you can do is learnt to roll with the punches,

because being flexible is the one way not to get broken.

I am the girl who smells of lake.

The girl who has been taught all her life that:

You get what you get and you don't throw a fit,

That you should prepare for everything,

but you can never truly be ready for anything.

We know from the start that life is a finite thing, 

yet we cling to it like it will do us any good.

I am the girl who thinks these things,

Silent, in her grandmothers old chair,

while her grandfather weeps,

and her brother smiles,

and her aunts and uncles converse in soft, tense voices.

And in the next room,

sleeping yet,

her grandmother continues to die.