For twenty-nine years I waited for my mother to die,
wrote a story and hid it well:
My Mother’s Diary.
When Mom first got cancer, I was a child.
She wouldn’t last long.
But it came and went,
came and went again,
came back.
“You have to be a warrior,” Mom always said.
I kept waiting for the battle to end.
She fought on through surgeries,
radiation,
chemotherapy,
more radiation,
more chemo,
countless hormone treatments.
When my time comes they will call me proud when I say,
“No, thank you.”
I will explain that I’ve been holding this ticket
for decades. My bags are packed.
I’m ready to fly away.