For five weeks after her stroke,
the hospice nurse would query:
“Dearie, do you have unfinished business?”
Calmly drifting in her cozy nest
Resting among thirteen pillows aptly tucked,
Cushioning her cocoon, her eyelids fluttered,
Shutters closed, she dreamed my dad was reaching…
Beseeching her to cross the threshold to dance
with him and Glenn Miller, “In the Mood.”
Cooed the nurse, “Honey, on a scale of 1-10, how’s the pain?
How’s the agitation?”
Notation: zero for pain, maybe two for distress,
Dressed in a blue nightie Al had gifted her
For sixty eight anniversaries, a negligee,
“Shluf mein kind, my mamme, Good Night Sweetheart, Shema Yisrael,”
Five weeks, each night I sang, her purpling hand squeezing mine
Nine A.M. the nurse returns: “Does she have unfinished business?
Someone she needs to forgive her? Someone she needs to forgive?”
Outliving cousins, a baby, lifelong friends
Revealing to us untold secrets at 102, and then
When I asked her, “Do you have any regrets?”
Gazing at Nora’s pregnant photo
Voice low, she smiled; “Just one, that I won’t know how the story ends…”
