The Final Escape

‘There’s something amiss with you today,

There’s something that isn’t right,

I heard you weep in your fitful sleep

As you tossed and turned all night,

We’ve been together for forty years

You’ve never been so distressed,

You’ve raised my fears with your silent tears

Why are you sad, my Blessed?’

 

‘A vision came to me overnight,

An angel with sparkling wings,

His face was glad, though he made me sad,

He said, ‘It’s the end of things!

The end of your careworn duties here,

The end of your struggle and strife,

The end of a long and loyal love

As a true and supportive wife.’’

 

‘Just what did he mean by that,’ I said,

As I felt my face turn white,

I grasped her hand like a drowning man

And I held her close, and tight.

‘Perhaps it was just a silly dream

Like the one that you had before,

The one about Michael, tapping, tapping

Tapping at our front door.’

 

‘Maybe it was,’ my wife had sighed

As she languished there in my arms,

‘But maybe again, he’d not have died

If I’d listened to his alarms.

He’d said that he hated swimming then,

And later I felt a fool,

The man at the door was tapping, tapping

To say he’d drowned in the pool.’

 

I felt the quiver of sadness then

That rattled through to the bone,

Our son was lost, and we paid the cost

In our small, but loving home.

She hadn’t wanted to look at me

For a year, or maybe two,

His picture flat on the mantelpiece

When she said, ‘He looked like you!’

 

I couldn’t deal with her sadness, for

My grief was hard to atone,

We walked like ghosts through an empty house

We both felt we were alone.

The years went by and our love revived

In a way that showed we cared,

The grief that came like a nightly thief

Was held, thrust down, and shared.

 

‘Perhaps it’s best that we let it go,

I feel so tired and wan,

I can’t remember the love we shared

Before our boy was gone.’

‘Your love was all that I wanted, Jen,’

My tears began to flow,

‘The angel’s name, it was Michael,

You’ll just have to let me go!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Ellen Hammond]

Another lovely, tear-jerking poem, written with your usual perfection.

[TPK Stories]

Another fine tale David. Great story.

[BlackRose]

WOW, so sad. Nothing like losing a child, the pain and anguish one feels. How I'm sure it can hurts imensely for years and years and...

SUPERB piece none the less.

[Lena M. P.]

There is no greater grief than loosing a child. It is not natural for them to go before us. Most couples don't survive the pain of the lost. You have written with so much grief here that it hurt me to read. Well written as always.

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

A touching, heartfelt prose and turmoil resonance stand still within this piece, well done, good read.

[Raymond Federle]

An emotional poem of loss and sadness...

[Marie]

Woman's intuition should always be trusted. THis one knew very well when her time had comt to go, and who had come for her...

I cannot really relate to this; I have no intuition of speak of.