“A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Friday, July 26, 2013

A Broken Support System


I cling for support
to a broken link about
to snap off cleanly.

Rusty and flimsy,
my link still enables me
to think I am fine.

I look around me.
Are there other links to grasp?
None seem stress worthy.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Judy,
I sense and understand your message.
I've heard it before. It does not leave me even after all these months. I can only wish you peace if it will come.
Hilda

Gail said...

HI JUDY - I sense your loss and fear. Perhaps we can hold on together. I will not let go.
Love Gail
peace......

Muffie said...

So often we seem to lose that feeling of security. Mine seems to elude me on a daily basis, at times. What choice do we have but to hang on, despite the weakness of that grasp.
Peace,
Muff
PS. Your comments on my blog now use your name -- did you choose that, or is it another glitch?

Karen said...

Keep telling yourself you are fine Judy...the power of positive thinking and all. I hope things will get better for you soon.

Judy said...

I hardly know where to start in response to my own poem. There is, plainly, heartbreak and fear of loss in this poem. While the poem does not encompass entirely my present reality—I find joy and value in my life—the unavoidable truth is that I face daunting challenges. My readers already know I have MS. Most, however, may not know that my husband, who has been my caregiver for decades, is seriously ill with heart disease. He is also considerably older than I and, in his late seventies, now also faces age-related diminished physical capacity and quality of life. The high probability is that he will predecease me, very possibly in the near term. Already an agonizing thing to confront, that eventuality is made even more wrenching by the fact that my husband has been my principal support system, apart from some kind friends who help but on whom I cannot fully depend. I have no family. Because of MS (which I have had for 40 years), I never had children. My parents and siblings are all deceased; my parents, due to normal lifespan; my siblings, younger than I, to untimely deaths. I have a stepson who lives far away and is, understandably, occupied with his own life. So, you begin to see some of the challenge I confront as I face this transition in life. A great safety valve for my pressure cooker life is this blog and the cherished friends who grace me here with their presence and support. You will never know how appreciative I am. Thank you so very much.

Hilda, it touches me to my core that you understand and sense what I am talking about. Our circumstances are hardly precisely comparable, but you know what loss feels like for you and how it felt like for George when he lost the underpinnings of his life.

Gail, thank you for holding on and offering a link I can count on.

Muff, yes, I have no choice but to hang on, even when I don’t feel like I can or that the link will sustain me.

Karen, I will do that—tell myself I am fine. I know that works. Sometimes it’s the only thing that does.