A Survivor's Tale

A SURVIVOR’S TALE

By Troy Smith

--

Sitting at the bedside

Of this frail little woman

Who helped raise me

Holding her gossamer hand

As she struggles for breath

Seeing my mother, her sister,

Harrowed in the corner

“Look what I brought,” I say

“A comic book to read

“While I sit by you

“Like when I was little”

My Aunt Essie

Aunt is too small a word

Essie is too big a force

This Southern matriarch

This Belle of the Ball

Living breathing icon

Drafted by Tennessee Williams

Blanche DuBois and Amanda Wingfield

Given flesh and form

This Appalachian shiksa

Who loved a Jewish man

(A Holocaust refugee)

And loves Jewishness itself

Who calls out the names

Of my mother, and me

“I’m right here,” I say

And stroke her hand

Her dementia erases

The recent past

But at least she knows our names

And at least perhaps forgets

That we have not visited enough

As the night wears on

She calls to a new player:

Her long-dead mother

“Help me, mama,”

She says, plaintive,

Arms outstretched

Snatching her hands at the air

Like a little child

Senile people, like infants

Tear at your heart

When they suffer

For they don’t know why

They only know

That it hurts

And they look to you

With tearful eyes

Wanting you to make it stop

But you can’t make it stop

And in this case,

Life’s end not life’s beginning,

You hope it does stop

You hope it doesn’t stop

You pray it will stop

You dread it will stop

Tonight it subsides

And I read in silence

Ten minutes after I finish my book

The doctor comes

And says it will stop soon

And we should say goodbye.

My eyes were already wet

From my reading-

Maus: A Survivor’s Tale

A graphic tale of holocaust

And Jewishness

And guilt and love

And endings

“I love you,” I tell her,

“And will see you soon”

And we clear the room

While the doctors work

Through the hours

Until they tell us

She is not out of the woods

But is stable now, breathing still

And for a moment I believe

She will never die

Though she has claimed to be dying

Almost all my life

She outlasts them all

But I know it is only a reprieve

And that the kindness of strangers

Can be relied upon

For only so long.

March 2016