Too Tight

This week was just too chaotic to even think about writing. I've been gone to the Write to Learn conference at Tan-Tar-A for three days. Between preparing to present at that conference and trying to get my homework done and straining to fit in a visit with a candidate for the Endowed Literacy Chair (which never happened---long, frustrating story), I didn't write anything but school work. So, I pulled a poem from long ago. This was written in probably 2002 a year before my dad died. He had a variety of illnesses, mainly Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and congestive heart disease. I wrote this piece after he'd fallen down the stairs at home. This, if I remember correctly, was the injury that finally made us place him in a nursing home; he was just getting to be too much for Mom to take care of.

Too Tight

“Don’t squeeze so;
It hurts.”

Dusk.
A mosquito and chigger-bitten girl
Runs willy-nilly over the yard
In pursuit of elusive lightning bugs.
Just out of reach, the nighttime torch bearers
Cavort, test aerodynamics, as the girl giggles.
“I got one! I got one!”
Her shouts ring out.
Chubby legs turn;
She races back to the porch.
Open fist reveals guts & slime.
“Eew!”
overzealous pursuit brings untimely end.
Daddy’s shoulder muffles heartrending sobs
And sops tears one by one as they fall.
He knows how tight to give bear hugs.

Twenty-five years later,
The child is now grown.
Daddy, her hero, has fallen,
One rib and some soreness add to the tally of age.
She once looked up into his eyes—
Love, respect, adoration communicated freely.
Suddenly, she’s looking down into thinning hair.
Love, respect, adoration still faithful but blue.
She stands and embraces him,
Remembers bear hugs so strong which
Gave her wings, lifted her feet off ground,
Squeezed breath from both lungs,
Made her fly through the night.
Yet again, forgetful and overzealous, she squeezes too tight.
She fights back tears, looks back over his shoulder
As he, ever patient, whispers, almost wheezes,
“Don’t squeeze so;
It hurts.”