Beyond This Moment

I hope I can be the man you were when it is my turn to cry

By author on Canva

I never understood how much
strength it takes to just sit and wait
until I watched my father sitting
by a hospital bed for twenty weeks
watching his wife slowly die.

I never knew patience until,
day after day, doctors would
come in, put their hand on his
shoulder, and say maybe today,
stay close, maybe today.

I never realized what courage was
until I listened as she quietly whispered
to my father, during those midnight hours
of barely cognizant, how to raise the four
and six year old she is leaving behind…
her fear not her death but would he
be able to handle what she left to him.

I never experienced desperation until
I watched my father, on his knees besides
the hospital bed, holding her hand, begging
her to live, to come home, to never leave him.