losing our first parent

Today is the eighteenth anniversary of my father-in-law’s death. He was the first of B’s and my parents to pass away. I wasn’t blogging or writing poetry then; it took years for me to process enough to write about his death. This poem was first published by Eunoia Review here in 2016. As it happened, he was the only one of our four parents that we were able to be with at the moment of death.

The Last Night
~ ~ ~ by Joanne Corey

Hospice told my husband what to expect
as his father’s death approached,
skin mottled,
eyes open but unseeing.

Crush the morphine,
mix with water,
spoon into his gaping mouth
every two hours.

The death rattle started,
unmistakable,
though we had never
heard it before.

We did what we could,
smoothing his hair,
holding his hand,
another dose of morphine.

I prayed the rosary silently,
lacking beads,
counting the decades
with my fingers.

When he quieted,
breath slow, gentle,
we woke his wife
of fifty-one years.

She lay beside him that last hour.

Breaths shallower,
with pauses between,
longer –
longer still –
until, near dawn,
no next breath comes.

We switch off
the oxygen concentrator.
Silence heralds
his absence.