"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.... A time to dance, and a time to mourn.... A time to laugh, and a time to weep." --Ecclesiastes 

I had a pet chicken, a little banty rooster, when I was five.

He would actually run to me when he saw me; and not just for feed, either.

Sometimes he would hop up on my lap, and I would stroke his soft feathers.

I loved that little rooster, with the kind of love that only a child can give.

When he died, I wept and grieved, as only a loving child could grieve for a bird.

Afterwards, I wouldn’t eat chicken at dinner or supper for more than a year.

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I sometimes would comb my grandmother’s hair,

From the time I was able to stand up.

Till I was twelve years old.

I would stand on an upside down empty wooden crate.

She would be sitting in her cloth-matted wooden rocking chair.

I remember looking down on her dear grey-haired head.

She showed me so much love during my earliest years.

Then my family moved to California, and we left her behind.

I missed her; and that cost the twelve-year-old me more than a few tears.

One night, I looked at the starry sky, and remembered the Disney song:

“When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are.”

So I wished on a star that I would get to see my grandma again.

I was so naïve, I really believed in star-wishing back then.

Then one night, my mother told me that my grandmother was dead.

That was when I found out truly how many tears my heart could shed.

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I had my dog Skip from the time I was twelve to the time I was twenty-three.

There was never a so-called animal who meant so much to me.

To me, he was a person, and my friend.

I loved him.  I loved his personality.

But though I loved him with the love from my childhood heart, open and free,

I could never have loved that dog, my friend Skip, as much he loved me.

One day I came home from work to find he had been hit by a car and killed.

My whole world was suddenly chilled.

I sat on the couch, without eating or drinking, for more than three days—

Holding and hugging and rocking my precious Skip’s dead body, and grieving.

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And so on and so on.  My father died.

My younger sister died.  My mother died.

My young brother died.

I could never count, never count, all the tears that I have cried;

Or ever tell all the grief that has made my spirit groan.

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I suppose I could have just forgot my loved ones who were dead.

I could have been Stoic; or I could have laughed and smiled and stayed happy.

And, true, my grief had no power to save.

None of my sorrow ever gave anyone I loved who died, even one more tomorrow.

My profoundest grief, for my grandmother’s death—

Wow, I could have spared myself all that!

All I had to do was be rational and realize crying and grieving could not help.

All I had to do was push her out of mind,

And push her out of my heart,

And forget that her dear grey head was buried in a grave.

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Some people think that is how I should now feel about myself.

Keep smiling.  Don’t cry.

Everybody has got to die.

Be cheerful.  Whistle a merry tune;

And don’t look with too much longing at the beautiful brilliant moon.

Don’t fret about losing the light.

Don’t fear that death is coming soon.

Less than a year left to live?  Or maybe, just maybe, you have ten?

Hey, maybe ten.  Ten years is a long time.  Keep up that chin.

And don’t think about how many years might have been.

Or how many of the few years that remain will pass in grievous cancer pain.

No, but smile and smile and smile and smile.  Be cheerful!

Don’t express

Your freezing fear of nothingness.

Or how terribly fearful

You feel, to think that your brain will be burned to ashes, or rot,

Snuffing out your mind, your knowledge, all your precious memories.

Especially,

Don’t tell

That you even fear that there just might possibly be some kind of hell.

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Just keep showing courage, courage, courage—

Cheer, cheer, cheer.

Don’t show your despair;

Don’t speak of your fear.

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Some people are that way, or can be, or can so appear.

Not me.  That’s not me.

I was neither Stoic nor callous about the deaths of my loved ones who died.

Nor shall I be

Stoic about me.

I love my life infinitely,

And I shall grieve infinitely,

Now that death has come for me.

I will string the last days of my life with the jewels of shining tears.

I will not hide the truth that my heart is breaking.

Breaking, for the loss of so many future years;

Breaking, for cancer’s coming pain and deadly shears.

I will not conceal how I feel, how my heart is aching,

Because my particular kind of cancer has to be treated

By taking away my testosterone,

So condemning me to be alone,

Lonely, lacking all ability to make love,

With barely and rarely even the ability to start a spark even of self-love.

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I will weep for the world that I am going to lose.

And even if I could choose

To hide my horror of death,

And show nothing but courage and cheer and optimism and joy,

To throw a false face

Into the face of death that is coming for me, my world to destroy—

No.  I would not do so.

I grieve for the going of all my loved ones; and one of my loved ones is me.

Now my own life I have to lose.

Desiring with all my heart to stay, I have to leave.

I love my life infinitely;

And I will infinitely grieve.



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Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
Written on Friday, April 10, 2009  8:54 am
Temperature: 590 F.  Winds: 3 MPH
Copyright (C) 2011 by Michael L.P.  All rights reserved