You noticed, when you last
saw Betty the evening she
was dying, in the curtained
off area of the ward, that she
was wearing around her neck,
the wooden rosary you had
given her some months before.
Her husband had telephoned
you and said she was dying and
she wanted to see you. But when
you arrived she was already on
her way out, her eyes closed,
the death rattle taking hold,
her husband and her children
about her bed. The rosary, a
brown wooden cross with a
metallic Christ, was still there,
the Christ lying where her night
gown covered ******* slowly
rose and fell. When you’d seen
her some months back, in the
high street, she said she would
learn the prayers of the rosary,
and how grateful she was to you
for the gift, and she fingered it
there and then, her thumb and
finger rubbing over the Christ.
You’d first met her a year or so
before as she sketched the large
gardens you visited as a group.
Her hand guiding the pencil as
the image was translated onto
the sketch pad, her eyes scanning
what it was she wanted to capture
in all its beauty. I like capturing
churches, she had said, watercolours
and pencil or charcoal as my aids.
You remembered words that evening
as she lay there dying from cancer,
the curtained area dim and silent
except for the rattling breath, just Betty
and the rosary in the end, and your
deep love and the unwanted death.
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 9:46 AM UTC
You noticed, when you last
saw Betty the evening she
was dying, in the curtained
off area of the ward, that she
was wearing around her neck,
the wooden rosary you had
given her some months before.
Her husband had telephoned
you and said she was dying and
she wanted to see you. But when
you arrived she was already on
her way out, her eyes closed,
the death rattle taking hold,
her husband and her children
about her bed. The rosary, a
brown wooden cross with a
metallic Christ, was still there,
the Christ lying where her night
gown covered ******* slowly
rose and fell. When you’d seen
her some months back, in the
high street, she said she would
learn the prayers of the rosary,
and how grateful she was to you
for the gift, and she fingered it
there and then, her thumb and
finger rubbing over the Christ.
You’d first met her a year or so
before as she sketched the large
gardens you visited as a group.
Her hand guiding the pencil as
the image was translated onto
the sketch pad, her eyes scanning
what it was she wanted to capture
in all its beauty. I like capturing
churches, she had said, watercolours
and pencil or charcoal as my aids.
You remembered words that evening
as she lay there dying from cancer,
the curtained area dim and silent
except for the rattling breath, just Betty
and the rosary in the end, and your
deep love and the unwanted death.
In memory of the late Betty Santer who died from cancer in 2007.
Request permission to use this poem