Stopper

This might not be the best introduction to my work, but this piece is near and dear to my heart. The original draft was written almost two years ago when my uncle was diagnosed with ALS and given six months. Two years later, I revised it to read at his funeral...So here it is, in it's final form. A piece of love, grief, and memory.

Written in Memory of Doug Larkin, a wonderful husband, father, uncle, son, and friend. We love you and we will miss you. This is for you. I'm sorry I couldn't bring myself to share it with you when you alive.

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Stopper

By Audrey Larkin

Guilt eats at my heart

For things I didn’t do

But had the opportunity too.

An aching in my bones

That I should be trying harder

Working smarter

Planning better

To see you before your time runs out.

I can see it.

An hourglass that hangs in the sky.

The top soaring past the clouds

That should be full of your unending future.

And the bottom filled with a storming sea

That your precious sands are continually lost in.

Lost in a place where I cannot retrieve them.

Let me put a stopper in the glass.

Stop your time from running out

Or let it flow into my hands

So I might put it back again.

Please let me freeze time,

Stop it from falling

So you will always be what I remember.

I don’t want to see you break

See you slowly deteriorate before my eyes

Then all of a sudden I blink and

It seems now you are steps away from death

Not even enough sand to fill a seashell

I wish I could crack open my own hourglass

To shovel some of my time into you

You should live

To see your son’s first baseball team

His first kiss

His first crush

A little girl with pigtails in his kinder garden class.

You should see his prom

And the girl he falls in love with.

I want you to help him plan his proposal

His wedding

Hold your grandkids.

I want all that for you.

I want your sand to run out when

Both your body and mind are tired and heavy

With happy memories.

I want those last grains of sand

To fall to the ocean

With the lightness and freedom

Of a long happy life.

You are only 45

But your months left

Can be counted on one hand.

Your son is only 3

You’ve only been married 6 years.

You were my age when I was born

Always the easiest to talk too.

The first to treat me as an adult.

How can we lose you now?

How can I lose you now?

You ask if I have a boyfriend.

You always thought you would get to ask him

If he was good enough for me.

You want me to be happy.

You don’t want me to be lonely,

Like you felt when I was growing up.

You’ve been married twice.

But it wasn’t until the second

That I saw you so remarkably happy.

Then this happens.

You must feel cursed.

If I could I would put a stopper

In the bottle of your hourglass

And keep you here

With those of us who love you

You are family.

I love you till the end

Of your time and of mine

Those of us who rarely see you

Will miss you most of all.