To My Grandma, Near The End Of Her Stay On Earth

Singing Session

How I miss singing with you, Grandma,
as mother marched us on with her piano!
I miss your voice--note true even after words were lost,
and I miss the clarity of those minutes of joy--
the way you'd close your eyes,
or open them to smile at me, singing by your side.

I struggle for words, Grandma, trying to know,
and to say, just what you mean to me.
It is very much, but hard to explain.
We didn't often walk together,
you and I, until you got dementia.
I ran after Grandpa more.
But later, you and I joined together
in loving the few and simple things that remained:
country life, sunsets, singing . . .

Even the repetitious conversations
were important, because we were turning over
and over again important pieces
of your broken life. We were remembering
the things that made sense. Like this:
you talked to Grandpa even when, as his nurse,
you weren't supposed to be too friendly.
I still find it funny that rule-stickler-me
owes my existence to a bending of the rules.

I sat with you in your last days, grateful I could be back
and sorry I had run from how it hurt
not to be known by you.
You lay in the same room where Sister and I slept as little girls.
I looked at the yellow eagles rowed on the wallpaper
behind your still body, and remembered
how we made you laugh too hard to say goodnight.

Grandma Singing