My girl, my daughter,
I am still here.
You tell me my heart stopped
three times already.
You saw my blood pressure fall
and my face go pale.
I lost the warmth
as my heart slowed
in what they call
a complication.
You tell me now
I apologized to you,
on the stretcher before the operation,
because I hadn’t cleaned up my room.
Of course,
I can’t remember any of this.
You laugh and continue,
“Is that what a dying person
should be saying?”
I am simply grateful
you can say this with a smile.
Before the operation,
I was ready to die –
to take this cancer with me
to the other world.
Now I know
I was not to die.
Something tells me
it was not my time
to cross that big river yet.
My heart stopped three times
five months ago.
~ Yukari Meldrum
Yukari F. Meldrum is a Certified Translator (Canada) who also writes and reads whatever and whenever she feels like it. Although writing and translating poetry are her passion, she enjoys writing essays and columns in both English and Japanese.
Read more of ‘s poetry:
– I am here
