Today while sitting on the patio of the hospice, he told me that he didn’t understand why everyone was so frightened of death.
“Obviously it can’t be that bad, because no one ever comes back, it must be better than this life we’re living.”
All this time I thought he was already gone like most of the patients in the house. Truth is, he’s more together then all of them. More aware of his situation, he understands he’s going to die an ugly, mean death when it’s all said and done. Nothing about AIDS is dignified, nothing is elegant or pretty. There’s no soft sigh and fluttered eyes marking your last breath. It’s all nasty and evil, and ugly! It makes me puke, and cry, and scream in horror, sadness, and frustration at the suffering that the patients at the hospice all go through before their last breath is marked by the heavy hearts of the staff and volunteers.
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"talk less write more"
"Many ingenious lovely things are gone that seemed sheer miracle to the multitude, protected from the circle of the moon that pitches common things about." -Yeats
Self Portrait
"talk less write more"
About Me
- claudine
- Born in Haiti, raised in Los Angeles, now living in the south. Wife, mother, and writer. Attempting my first novel called The Black Converse Diary; about a girl…… Also committed to the ongoing, almost forgotten, struggle against AIDS through various organizations. Mainly, volunteering at an AIDS hospice. Trying to find my own voice among the clutter. A strong, true voice that means something.
BLOG ARCHIVE
LIST IT
- "At the end of my suffering there was a door" (27)
- All Things Me (16)
- Hospice (7)
- To The Sea (1)
- Today (1)
- Waiting (1)
- World AIDS Day (3)
The Wild Iris
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.
Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.
Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.
It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.
Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.
You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:
from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.
Louise Gluck
there was a door.
Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.
Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.
It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.
Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.
You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:
from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.
Louise Gluck
THINGS I'M CRUSHING ON
- St. Aloysius
- Patches
- Apartment Story
- Cheekbones
- Padre Pio
- Louise Gluck
- Bloc Party
- Naked eyes with coat after coat after coat of black mascara
- The Bell Jar
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