Our Last Birthday Together: St. Vincent’s Hospital Palliative Care Unit, March 10, 2026
The nurses brought in the birthday breakfast with quiet hands,
the early light of dawn trembling,
uncertain, like the hush in Anne’s voice.
Anne smiled, the skin around her lips softening
as if time could not bear to bruise her further.
We watched their faces melt
beneath the warmth of so many whispered years,
and I held her hand under the hospital table,
tracing the veins – thin, blue rivers – guiding us back to our many homes.
Her laughter was a slow tide, receding,
leaving shells of memory along the shore.
Outside, the early March wind pressed its palm to the glass,
each gust a reminder that the world continues.
But in that hospital room, the imaginary candles burned longer,
casting gentle, forgiving shadows
over the last birthday we would ever share.
Your friend,
Robert
https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/
If you feel like keeping track of Anne’s cancer journey, I’m chronicling it in prose and poetry here:
https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/news/
