Others could tell you how he is there. <br />What went wrong, what stopped ticking, <br />Where health, medicine, science failed. <br />I am more interested in why he is there. <br />Does he deserve it? <br />I think not. <br />Tubes enter, violate saggy skin, tired with surviving old <br />eyes drop, droop closed, bloodshot at last look, never to see me again. <br />Something breathes in the corner. <br />It breathes for both of us. <br />Me- I am breathless with anger. Why now, Are-You-There-God? <br />Withered fingers curl on crisp sheets, sodden with the morning, sodden with lost hopes. <br /> <br />Flashbacks in dozing heads, of summers gone and swimming pools, and Grandpa in those horrid shorts. <br />Grandma had no taste, but I would give anything to see him in those now. <br />Flashbacks of nativity plays, of tea and scones and elderly friends <br />And all those Beale Park weekends, <br />Of perfume and hugs, of Old Spice and pats on expectant shoulders. <br /> <br />You beep, and inch by inch you turn greyer. <br />They aren't worried. 'It's time' they say. <br />A metronome keeps time as time fades away.<br /><br />Effie Yalena Steyn<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/life-support-goodbye-grandpa/
