The Beautiful Awful

My mom would have turned 77 today. It's been nearly 3 years since she died and I still miss her every day. I wrote this poem a few months after her death, shared it with 3 people and put it away. My sister reminded me of it tonight and I think I'm now far enough away from the intensely emotional last days of her life to put it out there.

My mom was so loud and gregarious. So full of life and energy. She didn't go out quietly. I stayed by her side those last 24 hours. It was the greatest privilege and the most terrible thing I've ever known.


The Beautiful Awful

I witnessed the birth of my mother
A grueling 24-hour labor

In the days leading up to her death, time walked backwards

She was incessantly chatty like a schoolgirl
On her last car ride, she turned her unlotioned face to the sun because "who cares about skin cancer"
She unloaded all of her stuff

When hospice arrived, she pulled me close and pierced me in her gaze, begging to know what they were saying
How much longer?
What are the signs?

A doula knows these things:
How to recognize the breathing changes
How to reply to the pleading "Help me"
How to make a mother more comfortable

I knew nothing
Futilely plumping pillows, rolling the dead weight from side to side, promising everything would be okay
When everything was awful

I just wish I had let her take her shirt off
So she could go out as she came in
Inching her tumor-ravaged shell through an invisible passage
Into something that is—that must be—
Beautiful.

© 2019 Amy Bordoni