(A repost from 2019)

My favorite aunt is dying.. cancer, quiet and consuming as a flame..

Seven short weeks ago she was easily doing an hour of step aerobics, unaware of this intruder, this murderer within. Now she's lifted from bed like a rag doll.

She is my mom, well, a near twin—only smaller, funnier, serpent sly, more heavenly childish, sapient with sweet attractive grace and modest pride.

I am in total awe of her. We're kindred spirits, two sillies among the dull and endlessly serious.

I feel her, see her, day by day, slipping away like the hastening angel of heaven foretold.

This is too big for me, too awful and too close.

I am struck helpless, nothing moves, I sit, hardly feeling, and watch her sleep. Death's cruel process suddenly made visible.

I silently rage at the loss of it—my loudest vehemence pointed to this ravenous, lurking enemy pursuing her inwardly like a swarm of deadly hornets accidentally composed.

40 and still stunningly beautiful, she lies surrounded by computers, iPads, phones, faxes, intercoms, notepads, friends and care-givers. Her life reduced to escaping pain and making arrangements for her soon to be orphaned children 4 and 6.

Fentanyl and other pain blockers are her nourishment and seem to work better in the daylight as lawyers garner powers of attorney, bankers conjure trusts and estate planners build foundations to protect small children from a mothers loss.

As if they could replace a single hug
.
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Songs for this (Gospel music):
Order My Steps by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
Angel by Sarah McLachlan
Jesus Loves Me by Whitney Houston

The echoes hum of paths not taken,
soft as sighs the wind has spun,
whispers trace the dreams forsaken,
things undone, the race unrun.

A fleeting glance, a step unsteady,
a hand not held, a word unsaid,
a love that lingered, never ready,
a spark that burned but quickly fled.

The door half-open, never entered,
the letter lost upon the tide,
a name once spoken, now surrendered,
to silence deep and time denied.

Regret, a shadow, lingers lowly,
mourning what we failed to claim,
yet life moves on, though sad and slowly,
softly sighing just the same.

It was another strange dream
Suddenly I found myself looking out an upstairs window at people arriving below
Then I thought "Wait a minute, where am I ? What house am I in ?
I don't have an upstairs, I live in a bungalow (only a ground floor)"

When I went downstairs there was this big Christmas tree up
I thought to myself "But I...I didn't put up my Christmas tree yet

And there were lots of people there and some familiar faces
And they all seemed to be smiling at me, as if accepting me there
As if there was nothing unusual, as if I belonged there.

It was like a party was going on
And then I seen my brother sitting amongst them all
One of his hands was bandaged
I didn't think it polite to ask him about it
Beside him was another younger relative
I was amazed astounded because this relative he had died a few years earlier, in an accident
Yet here... here he was right here before me

I thought to myself "This must be some kind of... some kind of Parallel
   Universe I'm in where things turned out differently"
It made me wonder was my own world  then just an illusion
It seemed so far away now... so distant

Suddenly I started to get a little afraid, I thought "But I don't know this world...this place
I don't... I don't belong here
How do I get out of here
How do I get back... back to my own world....  

Soon after this I awoke...again back in my own bed...back in my own world.

Open your eyes to see beyond the past,
Time, a reel unwound, looping too fast.
Enter future dreams lush with tears,
A kaleidoscope of fears and forgotten years.

The cigarette falls from her shaking fingers,
Ashes trace whispers where memory lingers.
Time, a distraction, but isn’t it all?
Strangers and entourage drift through the hall.

She was once a distraction—
A neon sign, a feverish attraction.
Now she’s a diagnosis,
A manic-depressive prognosis.

Regrets for the war within her rage,
Her soul, a novel with torn-out pages.
And yet, from silence, words flow clear,
Like ghosts dictating stories she can't bear.

Who are the strangers in this tableau?
Her reflection in fragments she’ll never know.
Time’s cruel arrow bends to her despair,
A loop of smoke curling in air.

Open your eyes, the past refrains,
Its endless echoes clatter in chains.
Yet futures gleam with dreams profane—
She writes them in ashes, again and again.