Gente, no se recuerden como morir,
your grandmother tells you,
the morning of her death.
It reminds you how graceful she’s been
at accepting dying.
About how she wants to leave with dignity.
She’s in her bed, propped up by pillows,
surrounded by her children,
grand ones, and nurses.
It’s the bed where she’d let you sleep,
as a child,
if you were frightened during sleepovers.
Where her warmth reminded you that
`no monster was greater
than her protection.
Lista,
she tells the family.
No lloran, por mi,
but we cry anyway.
None of you wants her to go.
Against protest,
despite possible new treatments,
her leaving,
she believes,
is divinely timed.
Estoy cansada, mijo,
she tells you,
sitting on the side of her bed,
holding your hand, for what you are sure
will be the last time.
And she shows you that dying is tired work.
You remember her sneaking you snacks when
your parents said no.
The extra money she would slip you
when you were down on your luck.
She soldiered you through that time
you had your heart broken
and showed you that ruin,
made for better people.
As her lights dim,
as her children cram and crawl
into all the empty
remaining spaces on her bed,
desperately clutching
pale-almost-dead limbs,
praying for her not to go,
she reminds everyone:
Es mi tiempo,
it’s just her time, she repeats.
Her eyes close for good and
you can’t stop thinking about
how elegant, and relevant, and true
her words were.
How her manner of expiring
was the complete antithesis
of what she first said that morning,
how she told you:
People, have forgotten how to die.
