AT THE KITCHEN TABLE

RayWhitaker September 18, 2018 - 8:05pm

AT THE KITCHEN TABLE

Mom sat across the table
From me, and altho I had my head down
I knew from sideways glance that hers
Was too.

We hadn't even buried Dad yet
He'd died just yesterday
My breakfast fixed for the two of us, inadequate
Barely touched, just sorta pushed around
The plate for the food wasn't just
Only the plate, it was the symbol of our day
Contents pushed to the side, scarcely paid attention to,
So sadly quiet.

She asked me what was she gonna do now
That's where she was,
I was in a different place
Blaming her Alzheimer's disease for Dad's demise
Finishing my eggs and muffin
I was punishing them.

She had worn him out,
Too soon I'd grouse, even though he would've been there
Only there, by her side, their airplane only having one engine
To fly thru their skies with.

Even though I was in my fifties
Seeing otherwise was only briefly
Then the grief took over and beer went well
With that.  Beer went really well with that.

My mother was just so very vulnerable
In that moment, pushing her focus usually absent
Reaching out of the imposter she had become
Reaching for her hand across the table, I just held it silently.
She'd been the brilliant, cosmopolitan traveled woman
Setting a fine example for my sister and I
Affectionate, raising two precocious kids
Now just moody, lost, and angry mostly.

Holding Dad's hand as he died
Just me and him there, he was sooo struggling
There at his end,
He grabbed mine tightly,
Asked me: "You got this with Mom?"
I nodded yes, squeezed back,
And he died.
Just like that.

Dad had been her rock in the rushing stream
That Mom had clung to, white-knuckled
Eccentricities flung into expanding dementia
We children now had to paddle that whitewater with her.

We hadn't even buried Dad yet
He’d just left us yesterday.
River rocks are wet, you know
Slippery, splashed all day long.

About the Author

Ray has been writing both prose and poetry since he was seventeen. What Ray is writing now is very different from what he wrote those so many years ago. All writers and poets are writing out of "the Self" however there are directions that the self speaks into, that change. Now Ray is attempting to put foremost in his work, just who he is writing for. He intends on writing for the everyday man and woman. He firmly believes that poems need to reach into the everyday person's pictures in their minds, and engage with those. This is where he aims to make a difference in his creative writing. Ray does readings around the state of North Carolina [USA], and is a member or the North Carolina Poetry Society, the Winston-Salem Writers, and The North Carolina Writer’s Network. He has thrice been a ‘Writer-in-Residence” at the North Carolina Center For The Arts and Humanities, at Weymouth, in Southern Pines, NC. Ray is married to his wife Sarah for twenty years, and both of them are retired healthcare workers; he was a Respiratory Therapist for 35 years.. He is the father of two daughters, and lives in rural North Carolina.”

He has two books published, “ACKNOWLEDGMENT: Poems From The ‘Nam,” 212 pages, 03/2015; “23, 18,” 106 pages, 10/2015. He has two other books he is presently seeking publication for: ‘WHITE DOG SPEAKING,” 88 pages, 2016; and “FOR THE LOST AND LOVED,” 93 pages, 2018. Some of his work has been published in American, Irish, and Scottish Literary Journals.

I'm Grieving, Now What?

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