Week 28: Blink of an Eye

When his eyes blink shut for the last time,
yours fill with tears.
Forgetting the bad days
to draw up the good ones,
we mourn,
and remember,
and cry.

What is life but a blink, anyway?
I try to recall those better years--
Velcro shoes,
pennies and diners,
childhood memories
of ridiculous stories that always
made us laugh.
But these memories are no more
than a flutter of eyelids--
there one moment to be forgotten
the next.

And I can’t push away what I remember
best from the last years--
his unyielding stubbornness,
his biting, bossing words
and most of all,
his sad, gaping loneliness.
But for this my heart doesn’t hurt,
because it is so easy to forget
the bad days if you
close your eyes.
And he was never really alone.
Despite it all,
you loved him,
and so I did too.

My eyes don’t blink back tears
until I embrace you. 
When finally I let go, 
my heart aches,
for though I didn’t know him
at his best, more than
anything,

I can’t stand to see you
cry.