~Mom's Heart~





"I'm not sure how to live." She said.

The words came out from her mouth


so easily

but hung in the air and stuck in my head 

like caught up in the branches of a tree.

"I'm not sure I even want to bother..."

She might as well have said she hated me

and used the edge of those very words

to cut my wrists

and my throat.I couldn't breathe. 

Suddenly the air inside me got snagged

and thickened like jelly in my lungs.

"I don't have anything to fight for. 

I am tired and I want to go."

And with those words 

everything was dislocated~

The hopeful words the doctor


had just said to us~

"We'll do a surgery


and implant a defibrillator

to help her heart if it stops again

The unit will shock 


and restart her heart."

The words were now fragments 

of a broken promise-

Hope,~broken and twisted

and laying in pieces at my feet.

My one reason to hope, to love,

to live and to wake sat before me

gray and dying

wanting to die faster


than her own heart was allowing...

And then came the worst words 


I ever heard,

"Please, let me die. I want to die. 


Don't hold onto me.


Don't be selfish."

The air was now cement inside,


her words like shards of glass 


in my ears,

tearing through the flesh 


of my own heart...

My mind could not process

what my heart already endured.

Her big brown eyes, usually soft 


bore into me,

her quivering, usually red-painted smile 


was stuck in a pout.

My hands shook as I looked at the legal paper


that I had been clinging to for dear life

since the doctor handed it to me.

Looking up our eyes locked.


The fierceness of her glare made me look away.

She looked off and let her tears free.

The nurse handed me a pen, touched my hand


and she leaned in and whispered,

"She will forgive you in a few days 


when she feels better


and realizes you did this to save her."

I felt a weak flutter of hope 


in my stomach 


but my Mother's voice silenced it.

"No, I won't! I hate you. 


I will never forgive you, Stacy,"

Her words dripping with hate, 


heavy with truth, 


so simply came to my ears

but turned my stomach.

"Well, Mom, I love you. 


I hope you know that at least."

My mothers face tightened. 


As she turned away from me 


I kissed her head.

I walked around her hospital bed

straight out of the room.

The doctors, the nurses and all our family 


melted around me

as I walked up to the counter. 

I couldn't make Mom want to live 

but, I argued, I could make her do the surgery 


in order to live.

I should have felt relieved 


as I signed my name to the paper.

My hand shook and my mind was hearing her words 


over and over.

"Don't be selfish. I hate you, Stacy."

As I handed over the paper I felt each word 


pound in my heart.

I should have felt hope

but all I felt was Mom's anger...


~Stacy J Roosa

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