What I Have, or, The Caregiver After All

by James B. Nicola

I have what I remember of you
and more:

the blood
which I did not ask for but got,
and need only to merit, every day;

the milk
which gave robustness to my unremembered years;

your resilient, indomitable help and persistent, infectious cheer
as, even daft, you managed to get those at the Home far dafter than you
to eat something, withstanding the shrill attacks from the cantankerous;

the grand swelling of joy
toward your last;

the love, and the ability to love,
or, in my case, an intractable capacity for it;

but most surprisingly I can now say

the valor
of which you never spoke but demonstrated from the first,
and even more evidently toward the last,
which I've been needing lately more and more.

For this is the lesson you taught only in demonstration:

That kindness during strife is nothing
without bravery to see it through.

Your lesson of my lifetime.

So now in difficult moments
when The Former I would be flustered
I offer what you’d offer, were you here
and am more than I was, for all concerned.



And only in the still of the early morning
      passing these same hours I used to wait for you to wake,
      and would ponder, pregnant with a pen,
do I see

that the end may be The End, but not It’s Over

in that I’m only—will be only—something
in that you were

and are