Just days before five
my great granpa died,
my special buddy – gone.
“Old age,” I was told.
but that confused –
all my family was old,
would they all die now?
After a year passed
another in the family died
and Granma left to help.
I missed her.
Next death was worse:
I was sixteen when
my father died from
a doctor’s error
and my world stopped.
The next hard death
was my oldest grandson,
just twenty-two.
I was seventy when
he left us all.
I could not stop
or help him.
My daughter wept
I could only hold her,
all I could do,
and I still cry.