mused with mary

Their faces fell with the setting sun

falling over the Charles, 

tumbling, plunging, sinking,

I saw their hearts fall, as I stood there.

That big bold sun, shining brightly, unashamedly, as if no cares in the world, 

right outside the gray concrete walls in their new hospital home,

taunted them with beauty

As they hear what they never hoped to hear,

prayed not to hear.

But heard. 

Cancer.

In their hands, like a limp little doll, lay a boy.

Their third.

Six months old.

His ears were filled with beeps and chimes, hospital lines keeping him alive.

His eyes were glossy like polished marbles, dancing around the room.

From the morphine. 

His body was fighting a glorious, horrible, wonderful fight.

Against itself. 

It was unfair in unpredictable ways. 

To the sons at home, the world just shifted, tilted, against their will.

Away from them. 

Their world had just refocused, setting itself clear on the little brother who just came home.

The brothers became patients themselves,

in an effort to help him fight the fight. With their matching marrow.

Their parents never expected to be living, for many days, in a hospital room,

with the bright, bold sun taunting them outside. 

At least for a time. 

Stuck inside.

Cold. Dark. Sterile. 

Maybe you can unsee certain things, by seeing a million other things. 

Maybe you can unhear certain things, by hearing a million other things. 

Maybe you can unthink certain things, by thinking a million other things.

But you can never unfeel the way it feels, to see a child,

dying.

And that his loving, caring, gentle parents, 

and his two innocent, unexpecting

selfless brothers, 

would be left in death’s wake.