Mama’s Gone
Still can’t believe
the ‘heart on my sleeve’
gone on heaven’s highway
Mom’s grief now has passed
Since she breathed her last
She’s taken the skyway
Let’s raise glasses now
to the one who knew how
to smile in earthly hell
Tell stories, we will
as bar counts its till
of Charlotte, pre-death knell
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Three Word Wednesday, which gave us Grief, Bask, and Raise. Sounds like an Irish wake to me! Also for ABC Wednesday, brought to you by the letter “M.” I don’t know whether this poem is a form, but it makes some sort of sense!
My mom could tell stories ‘til the cows not only came home, but went back out to pasture. I think she was a undiagnosed manic depressive like me and like her mom, Blanche, and she had that gift of gab. When she was drinking, she was either hilarious or hideously depressing; either way, I heard every story she could spare and committed it to memory and soon to memoir. Momoir?
Her death should have been scored by Puccini – agonizing, the slowest two weeks the world has ever seen, full of drama and angst. Twenty years later, I can still remember having to shoo close friends away from her bedside (“Don’t let them gawk at me, promise, Amer”) and take her home (“Promise me, no nursing homes”) to die in her own bed, another promise. She had not had a drink in 10 years, and after that last breath, I left sister’s side, clutched Charlotte’s hand, and sent her up with, “Mama, you died sober!”
Amen. Amy
