In The End Who Cares? Poem by Shalom Freedman

In the end who cares?
And who is going to care?
It is nice to pretend and imagine
That some strangers somewhere
Will sing your literary praises
But in truth
What will be is clear now
Very few will care
As very few care now
And it is only those few family members
You have truly cared about and loved
Only a few
Will care
And that is not strange
And that is the way it is for many perhaps even for most
A few only a few will care
When you are not even pain or illness or helplessness anymore
When you are gone forever
A few if a few
Only those few
They and they alone
Will care
Until they can't care too
And then nobody will care
And that's the way it will be forever
And that's it
Down the line
At the end of the end of it
No one will care
But you won't know about it either
So don't worry
No one will care
That no one cares
So forget about the caring
And get on with whatever you are getting on with for now
And don't care about the caring
Or if you have to-
Care if you want
Either way it doesn't matter anyway.