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###My Mother Died of Cancer
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Every night when I turn off the light,
Immediately as the room goes dark,
I do something curious…
I automatically without thought
Begin to pray the Hail Mary…
Strange since I no longer believe in god
Or practice the Catholic religion
that taught me the prayer as a young boy.
I don’t know when I started this,
But I believe it was when my mother
Died of cancer nine years ago.
She was president of the local prayer chain…
A group of women who would call each other
Whenever there was a sickness or disaster,
Or pending sickness or disaster,
And each would know to pray to God for help.
Maybe I started praying to keep the chain connected
Since my mother’s link was open.
I don’t know, and don’t remember.
My mother was devout and loyal to God.
She had lived by the rules of the church,
she was compassionate and caring,
loving in the ways taught by Jesus.
So it was hard for her to understand
Why this all-powerful all-loving God
Had decided to inflict upon her
This deadly deteriorating disease.
So she turned to me,
Her intellectual but not spiritual son,
And asked me “Why? ”
“Why did God choose me to have lung cancer…
What have I done to deserve this? ”
I told her that if we had intelligence enough,
If we had the knowledge and capability
To follow the cancer cells in her body
All the way back to the very beginning
Maybe we could isolate the moment of conception,
The genetic miscue, the misguided mutation…
The actual puff on the umpteenth cigarette
That started the infiltration and destruction
Of healthy lung tissue.
Then we would know that A led to B,
And B led to C, and C led to death.
We would realize that it’s not personal,
That cancer doesn’t discriminate or choose
Its victims based on goodness or evil.
It’s just part of the chain reaction of life
that we call the physical universe,
And it’s only when we choose to believe in God
that we must assign a moral reason to our suffering.
But my answer was not sufficient.
There was no comfort in it.
My mother had dedicated her life
To a God that she trusted would provide
For her in her darkest moments,
And she was unable to turn her back on him,
Even if she didn’t understand his plan.
And so for the very reason that humans
since the beginning of time
have turned to higher powers
for justification and mercy,
always giving tribute for God’s goodness
without blame for his cruelty,
My mother had to die a horrible
And painful death at the hands of her creator.
My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?
I have chosen not to believe in god,
So I don’t have to worry about his twisted logic.
But I have learned to believe in spirituality,
That we are all connected through thought, mind and body.
So perhaps when the light goes out,
I do not pray to god, but to his mother…
To my mother…who blessed me with her
Wit and humor, who loved me through all my faults,
Who never would have thought of hurting me,
And the only pain she ever caused me was by dying…
Because I miss her each and every day.
Holy Mary mother of God
Pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
Coach Roth
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Click here to write your comments about this poem (###My Mother Died of Cancer by Coach Roth)
Ashraful Musaddeq (9/11/2008 12:24:00 AM)
So lovely, so touchy and so beautiful poem! |
Mamta Agarwal (9/5/2008 12:37:00 PM)
this is sOmoving. we are all assailed by doubt, disbelief, agony on losing some one dear to daedly diseases. why me -is one question we ask at the beginning, but later accept it as a part of larger cosmic plan. Coach, i really felt moved by the last lines. there is not a day i don't miss my mother. she lives in me and i am what i am because of her. thanks
MAMTA |
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