Last night, my great-grandmother, who turned one hundred 2 months ago, passed away. It is very strange--I just mentioned three days ago in my post that she wasn't really living, and now she's physically not. I don't really know how to feel. I'm not really mourning, because I know that it was her time, yet I feel like there is something not right about that. But the way her life was, I cannot say that I wish she was still living on. Perhaps this poem I wrote a few weeks ago will better express what I'm trying to say:
After a Hundred Years
Her heart continues beating, her lungs still take in breath
but after a hundred years practice, it is programmed,
like a machine, she knows no reason.
She cannot hear "I love you," can't see our smiles, our tears.
She feels not lonely, nor joyful, nor sad--she knows no emotion but fear
as each day she awakes in a new place, though she's never left.
She no longer remembers names or faces.
She's forgotten where she's from, and where she's been--
Even her husband and son are but a distant memory,
long gone from this life, and from her mind.
She sits in her wheelchair, alone all day and thinks nothing
of the absence of those who could come visit, for she cannot remember
even when they are there, holding her hand,
stroking her once golden hair, which has grown pale, after a hundred years.
No shadow of color remains, no glints of sunshine bounce off the surface,
only deathly white strands, absorbing the life around her.
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