Hellos and Goodbyes

In tribute to my sister, Bonnie, who comes here every month, from Philadelphia, to take care of our 91 year old Mother, I salute you with this poem listed on today's Writer, a fitting end to her 4-day visit.  Mom is getting more frail every day.  It's like watching the portrait of Dorian Gray come-to-life before your eyes.  Very sad.  Nothing we can do to stop the aging process--hers or ours.


This trip she blew up at my sister causing her to feel very bad.  Mom accused my sister of tricking her into going to a store to purchase an aid to help her in and out of the bathtub--a chore that's become unmanagemable by any of us "lay" daughters.  Mom's too heavy and tippy for us to navigate her 170 lbs. in and out of the bathtub, anymore. 


So Bonnie took Mom to a store to see about having bars attached to the side of her tub.  But Mom felt Bonnie tricked her, somehow.  It didn't make sense.  Irrational comments often spilled from Mom's mouth, anchored in fear or humiliation or regret. But it wasn't even this that caused my sister to take serious offense.  Rather, it was when Mom called her a liar.  That did it.  My ordinarily super-calm, collected and congenial sister lost it at that remark.  Of course, later, Mom denied even saying it but say it she did, causing my sister great heartache and distress.


So, to you, my sister, my friend and to all the sisters and friends and caregivers out there who do so much and reap so little.  Who try and understand and empathize and do their best---for old folks and everyone:

Waving Goodbye

by Wesley McNair

Why, when we say goodbye

at the end of an evening, do we deny

we are saying it at all, as in We'll

be seeing you, or I'll call, or Stop in,

somebody's always at home? Meanwhile, our friends,

telling us the same things, go on disappearing

beyond the porch light into the space

which except for a moment here or there

is always between us, no matter what we do.

Waving goodbye, of course, is what happens

when the space gets too large

for words – a gesture so innocent

and lonely, it could make a person weep

for days. Think of the hundreds of unknown

voyagers in the old, fluttering newsreel

patting and stroking the growing distance

between their nameless ship and the port

they are leaving, as if to promise I'll always

remember, and just as urgently, Always

remember me. It is loneliness, too,

that makes the neighbor down the road lift

two fingers up from his steering wheel as he passes

day after day on his way to work in the hello

that turns into goodbye? What can our own raised

fingers to for him, locked in his masculine

purposes and speeding away inside the glass?

How can our waving wipe away the reflex

so deep in the woman next door to smile

and wave on her way into her house with the mail,

we'll never know if she is happy

or sad or lost? It can't. Yet in that moment

before she and all the others and we ourselves

turn back to our disparate lives, how

extraordinary it is that we make this small flag

with our hands to show the closeness we wish for

in spite of what pulls us apart again

and again: the porch light snapping off,

the car picking its way down the road through the dark.

"Waving Goodbye" by Wesley McNair from Lovers of the

Lost: New & Selected Poems.

© David R. Godine, 2010