Writing

” If I have given my all, and still do not win – I haven’t lost. Others might remember winning or losing, I remember the journey.” Apolo Anton Ohno

Welcome.

Although I am well known for my sometimes nasty commentaries, I do enjoy the revealing and occasionally softer genre of poetry. I rarely find time anymore, to devote to writing ‘for fun’, but I still enjoy it. In the past, writing poetry has been my refuge and my therapy, and the pieces I’ve written often chronicle my personal experiences with domestic abuse and cancer. Here is where I will post a variety of works that may not fit into the mainstream blog postings.

I welcome your comments, your reactions, your thoughts…

For What it’s Worth

It started with a message, like it does for most- my mother’s voice breaking, saying I needed to call her, her tone saying more than her words ever could. The call was short, her dad, my “poppa”, was dying, and wanted me to come home. The unbearable back pain thought to have resulted from a slipped disc, had actually been the rapid insinuation of liver cancer throughout the rest of his body.

Numb, sitting on the couch with tears streaming down my face, I thought of how poppa must have woken up that morning , never knowing that the new day breaking was actually the beginning of the end. I went home immediately, overwhelmed at the thought of everything I had never said, or done, regretting having waited. Selfishly, I wondered how I would pack a lifetime of memories into the 4 weeks we had left.

I was closer to poppa and nani, my maternal grandparents, then anyone else in this world. They were the grandparents childhood dreams are made of- loving, indulgent, comrades in arms if I was in trouble, a soft spot of caring when I was hurting. Concentration camp survivors , the crude tattooed identification numbers on their arms taught me that what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. And now, the only thing I could do to help this man who had given me so much of himself, was to be by his side as he began his departure from my life.

What do you say to someone who’s dying?

There are no words, so much being said when we met each others eyes for the first time. Those last days were filled with moments so tender and poignant; cutting his hair for the last time( he wanted to look good when he died !) and discovering ways to soothe and nourish him, making his passage as easy and painless as possible.

The moment I cherish most happened in the middle of one of his last nights. Awoken by his cries for help, I padded down the hall into his room, where he asked me to get nani to help him go to the commode. I refused to wake her, exhausted as she was from the ordeal we were living, and said I would do it instead. Embarrassed, and frustrated by the constraints of his weakness, he refused, not willing to relinquish the dignity of toileting himself. Angered and exhausted, I simply lifted him up, escorted him over to the commode and told him to consider it repayment for handling all my diapers when I was a wee babe!

He laughed, and leaving him alone to do his business, I leaned against the outside of the door and cried, not wanting to ever forget the sound of his laughter.

We sat alone in the dark on his bed that night, side by side, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders against the cold. There was so much I wanted to say, but couldn’t – how much I loved him, and needed him , how much I appreciated every little thing he had ever done for me. I looked over at him, and seeing the sparkle of tears on his cheeks in the dark, I knew that he too was struggling to find the words. I learned then that sometimes words are unable to express what can only be told by the heart and soul of two people who are truly connected in ways beyond the body. As we hugged for what seemed like a lifetime, I knew he would be with me always.

He died exactly 4 weeks to the day of my mothers call, and I was devastated.

My grandmother never recovered from the loss of her lifelong love, grieving for years still, until she joined him in death last year.

Why am I writing this today ?

I miss him dearly, every single day.

He would have been so proud to see where I am, and what I am doing – following my dreams. Our days on this earth are numbered, and death is an unknown certainty that we often forget. If there are things you want to do, or things you want to say to someone, don’t wait. You may not get the chance. Are you living the way you want to be remembered?

If I could go back and do more, say more, I would in a heartbeat.

Carpe Diem , my friends. Seize the day. Honour your loved ones the way I plan to honour my poppa – by living my life to the fullest and leaving plenty of stories for my children to tell, long after I am gone….

Laila Yuile copyright 2007

 

Beginnings

It was painstakingly familiar..
Leaning back on the door, temples pounding..
It wasn’t the first time

but it would be the last.

I stood still – maybe you’d think I gave up.
Maybe you’d stop

maybe you’d pause..

So many maybe’s..and no definates,but…

I always got up,

Tattered soul and a heart left wanting.
That fateful Sunday ,we stood there, in the middle of the mall.
I held my chest,
breathing heavily against the marble pillar
You smirked and looked me over…

Eyes bugged with resolve

Soaked to the skin..sweat dripping from my every pore..

Blue and violet blooms

Of defiance upon my face…
the heavens drenched the earth outside that day,

but I never noticed.
I begged and pleaded with you to let us go -

all I got was a kick in the face.

Angered

You held my neck, twisted my face ….

kissed me a wretched final goodbye and then,

headed off

To fight again – the law,

your sentence.
I knew at that moment, that I was better off dead.

no.
better off without you.

better off alone…
You lost it that day.

but I found a part of me

that was broken..

bruised.
You,

You broke me a thousand times

and then…
no more.

Laila Yuile copyright 2004

 

Violet Dusk

 

sitting

by a crystal waterfall

in a

misty-fingered coast valley

a mile away from sunset

dwarfed

by ancient cedars

boughs caressed with

emerald folds of moss.

here,

I am but a blink in the midst of time

filled with reverence

for the wisdom of this place

its peoples

its secrets…

chaotic silence

whispers to me

stories passed from elders

come and gone

times of challenge and triumph

pain,

sorrow…

one tear is not noticed

in a river of thousands.

sometimes even eyes that see

are blind to faith.