I regret not saying goodbye to you
Or seeing you before that happened
My last hello could have been my goodbye
I hadn’t seen you in a month
I did talk to you on the phone
From far away, I thought you were okay.
You said it loud and clear
“Those are my last few days”
And I would say, of course not
It was delusional
How we think that life is infinite
That someone is immortal
I don’t know if I said that to console you,
Or myself
I don’t know, now remembering
If it was okay not to cry when you really,
Were gone.
I don’t know what it’s all about;
Life,
Death.
What do we do with it?
I don’t understand.
They described you to me,
On a hospital bed
How sad, how surreal,
So pale, but rosy cheeks and a smile
Are all that I could see.
I didn’t want to visit you in that same hospital bed,
You were in a few months ago.
I was scared I wouldn’t believe it.
I had already gotten to the point,
Even before you were gone,
You were gone
I knew it was going to happen.
I knew I wanted to speak at your funeral,
But didn’t
I knew I wanted closure.
In a grave they dug you.
4AM and your last breath was taken
On a Saturday, I woke up to wear black
To hear my brother cry
For the very first time.
Sitting in a hall where all people cried
Came up to me to tell me
“She’s really gone, isn’t she?’
And I would nod in patience and hug her sisters, her children;
My uncle, my aunts,
My father.
My father whose reaction I didn’t understand
His mother, just gone,
Not a tear in his eye.
In black he was suited
And in black I remain
I did not cry, because I couldn’t.
Was he not crying to be strong?
After all, he was strong.
My mother stood in the middle.
I remember she was crying.
Not her mother, maybe.
But her best company for 20 years,
I remember every bit of it,
Every second,
Every time I ran out trying to tell myself,
That it couldn’t be real,
Every time I stood at the grave,
With the family name
Every time I didn’t really have a choice,
But to smile.
I tried to show how I felt,
But it’s not like that.
It’s not easy trying to be strong,
It’s not easy saying someone got taken away from you.
16 years with me,
And on the 1st of September 2013,
I could hear the bells ring in the morning.
8AM here we are.
*Because I never got to say goodbye, because I never got a chance to show you how much you mean to me. I’m really sorry for not being there when you probably wanted me to.
May you sleep in ever peace. Rest your shoulders and close your eyes for heaven has taken your soul to pass.