calmkate

Finality

We’ll never know what day
the manner or the way
in which death will have its say
for we are not here to stay

Lying dying on your bed
car keys and investments by your head,
precious belongings stacked nearby,
relatives and friends around you cry.

None are of any benefit as we die
They create dilemmas as we lie
Only confusing us as we try
To let go of all that might tie

Us to this world, body and ‘my’
Best we despatch without a sigh.
What can help us get by?
Morality which one can’t buy

Start it now before you’re nigh,
Then one can leave on a high.
Let your spirit truly fly!
Why settle for less as you vie

For that seat in heaven or rebirth.
Don’t let fear deprive you of mirth,
Face the inevitability of death now.
Make a will, think of it somehow.

Decide how to distribute all;
Be well prepared for that final call.
As one is never sure
when or how we leave this core.

ccc 4.2.07

Daily Prompt:  Final 

42 comments

  3. I was born between eternities. Though the Creator will kill me in this life, and I don’t believe in much of an afterlife beyond a fading into nothingness, I still love Him and am grateful. It’s the most graceful forgiveness towards Him his creation can say, “You gave my life, and you’ll take it away. I love you still and thank you.” Life is such a gift. Imagine being a stone instead or trapped in the primitive ways of a lizard.

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  6. Loved this one so much. Really profound. Your words speak to the soul. No doubt, all of us are destined to die and none can foretell when. It is better to ‘live’ till we are alive so we could die without a sigh. Wonderfully penned!

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  12. Ha! This wise poem reminded me of my dad. He was a workaholic who got angina, which limited how much he could do, so he got tired of life. He sent my mum to London for a few days, so she’d be out of the way, and set to work gutting and rebuilding the kitchen. I think he was trying to kill himself in such a way that no-one would call it suicide. Mum returned to find him very unwell. He had a couple of minor heart attacks, and then a major one. He was admitted to hospital, where he made a remarkable recovery, until….
    I’m sure he willed himself to have the massive heart attack which killed him. The staff fought for his life as if he was their father. When they failed to resuscitate, a couple of the nurses wept! (He was an extremely charming man)
    The point is, although he had planned his death, he’d just prepared a headstone, to inscribe for Lady Arran’s dog that had died – he did stuff like that in his spare time. He’d left the work unfinished, which was odd, because he’d prepared for his death in other ways, even made a coffin, and left his will inside it – but that’s another (hilarious) story.
    I went into his workshop a couple of days after he died. I felt the weight of that unfinished work; the strangeness of how everything had suddenly stopped, just like that.The letters were drawn out, ready to be carved. I picked up a chisel, and felt his hand on the small of my back. I’d never carved bathstone before, and hadn’t carved anything at all since his attitude towards me changed – when I was 10, and he noticed I was becoming a woman.
    I felt him guiding me as I began carving. I worked for about an hour. A few days later I went back to finish it, and he had no need to guide me. I made a perfect job of it, and got well paid for doing it.
    I think he was trying to make up for the things he did when I was young. He intended for me to finish that headstone.
    For a couple of years after he died, he often came back to me, I’d feel his hand on the small of my back, just like when I was a kid. I think he was looking for reassurance, or forgiveness.
    Whew! This is a long comment!

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    • wow powerful and deep … what a fascinating relationship with your father … I am sure some precipitate their death in their own time. Glad he let you finish the carving, delightful story. Maybe you could copy this and make a post of it? A tribute to him ….

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    • I am reminded likewise of my father who, whenever the matter of his own mortality drifted into the conversation would say, “Ah, yes … on that melancholy day …. “.
      As it turned out, it was not all that melancholy. We had a lot of laughs. He was a funny man.

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    • One of my other grandpas and I were stuck with each other for a few months. I had to move back in, and he HATED me living in his house but tolerated me because my grandma and I are very close, and this grandpa was in love with her until the very end, very loving and loyal. It’s all he talked about. He was in so much pain he wanted to die, though he didn’t want my grandma to see him weak. She was in the hospital. He kept telling me how he wanted to go for a bicycle ride and to let him. He made suicidal remarks a few times, though grandma doesn’t believe he’d ever say such things He told me he was ready to die. He couldn’t do anything but sit and stare. Breaking Benjamin wasn’t there… so noble the artist.

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  16. I love the line ‘car keys and investments by your head’, it speaks volumes of the routine preoccupations we sometimes find ourselves engaged in while sleepwalking through life. Thank you for the wake up call, Kate. 🙂

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  18. Very wise advice that should be noted, especially when one has many complications that have to be sorted out, thanks Kate for this. To die in Peace is all I wish for, as you say we do not know when or how.

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