The 'Nail in the Coffin' Boyfriend

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It was always kind of quiet in certain ways when you were here 
  because you were off doing your thing and me mine.
But now a blacked-out sound of piercing silence lingers between us, and me and you.
You have risen up beyond the noise, and us down here, well we are all still in it.   
You used to be a part of our noise.   
Your daily calls to Mom, your kids, our occasional talks, facebook posts.   
Mom would tell me what you were up to - getting your nails done,
  or looking for a new outfit, and then close to the end,
that we had no idea would be the end, 
  in came........... your new boyfriend.  
If I were to be really scathingly truthful, I'd call him, 
  the 'NAIL IN THE COFFIN BOYFRIEND.'  
An intense final party time that was to be your last, ever.   
I kind of was so happy you had found someone to give you some love,
even if it was not real in the way I feel love is real.   
It was attention, it was touch...
AND IT SUNK DEEP into your aching bones and canyons of loneliness.  
Those aching, yearning bones and canyons of loneliness that many of us know.
That's why I was kind of happy for you, but within my happiness
  A SMALL RED WARNING LIGHT GOING ON AND OFF.... ON AND OFF...
But who could do anything about those?
  Those 'red warning lights that had surrounded you all your life?' 
Besides, YOU had always been the Cat with Nine Lives!   
So how could a little perverted, drug induced, abusive love tryst take you down? 
You gave too much and he took it all and demanded more
  and you forced yourself to rise up to the challenge
  because you just couldn't go back to that lonely canyon.   
Twice during the race to keep up with him,
  to make sure he stayed,
  do anything to insure he would still love you, 
your ragged soul went down...
  you got sick.
And like the saying goes "the third time was the charm."    
The 'Charm.'  
In retrospect, in rear-viewing the sequence of events 
  that third time when you got sick,
as they were working to bring you 'round
  'just in reach' of yet 'another chance' to start again,
the cardiac arrests came in with a vengeance.   
"BE DAMNED DEATH ANGEL" 
Your sinking soul screamed and in those moments of resuscitation you gasped
  and jerked in another living breath... 
THEN...
  another clenching as your heart RIPPED SEARING PAIN through your chest
BUT AGAIN...  your soul wrenched free of its grasp.
It seems you needed to stay a bit longer.
You needed to TRY with all your might to find your way back... 
You needed another chance... "please just one more... I'll get it right this time!" 

But as you began to stare out from a place inside your mind that made no sense,
everything was jumbled, dark,
  confusion spinning through your head. 
99.9% brain damage, the doc had said.
The weeks lingered on along with your struggling
  and everyone struggling with you in-between hope and the vision
  of you not moving much, hands clenched, face grimacing...
Was it a grimace or a smile? 
Your eyes tracking each of us and at times a mumbled response and an occasional tear   that would trickle down from the corner of your eye...
  as your daughter stroked your hair 
Where to stand, what to feel, what to do, what to think, how to interact...
We all did the best we could before you passed.   
  You DID try, so very hard,
  You attended a 12-step church
  You would call me weeping hard, crying from your loneliness
  You told me how much you loved Jesus
  You would tell me to ask God to help me with my sugar addiction
  You loved your children hard and tried to make up for the years past
  Your Grandchildren were your joy...
But the 'one two many chances' ran out and the 'third times a charm'
  cast its spell of death in those cardiac arrests.  
  The death of your addiction
  The death of your inability to stay clean
  The death of your extreme aching loneliness
  The death of your struggles
  The death of a life spent chasing the answers and avoiding the silence at all costs...  
    until after your last breath...
  when the charm that had worked its painful magic lifted you up 'free.'
 
Up and out you floated into the silence.... the love... the light.
Floating away from the dead brain and crippled body......
          floating away from the needle and the damage done

the piecing silence lingers....

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© Christina M. James 10/29/17
      (written after God's Grace took my Sister home)