To Raise You ....

You sit in your corner chair, pillows, blankets, medicine...

You smile. My heart feels a tug and I pray God to humble me in this task. Time to help you up.

I open my arms like an encircling embrace of strength and love, and you hesitantly reach around my neck -

As you rise, your o-so-slender body slips from me

like a long white feather from a dove's wing.

You cannot rise. You are back sitting again, sad.

“It's about what you CAN do”, I say softly, “not what you can't. Let's try again,” You moan but try once more, and

After a few attempts you finally rise into my strong arms
and I release you to your world.

A world of medicine bottles and bandages, pain and frustration at a life which is as fickle as it is glorious.

Your ocean of friends love you almost as much as I. This makes you happy, and you connect each day to these people of your heart.

We will do this, you and I, like sisters of another world who need each other to be complete.

Take your time, my sister.  Take your time in these, your last earth-days.   Never will I leave your side.

It is you who must leave me .....