A Secret Carried

Born in 1909, she had two goals in life,

to live to be 100 years old, and to make

every one’s life as miserable as her own

with her demands and badgering, her complaints

and expectations no one could ever achieve,

not even Walter married just 20 years

before his escape to the end of a fishing pole

and alcohol cost him his life falling overboard

to drown on Hebron’s shore, the lucky man.

And when she turned 100 and prepared herself

to die, she continued on, though she had met this goal,

a box to check off checked off, but hanging on, still.

We joked that God and the Devil argued over her,

too good for one, not good enough for the other,

or knowing her second goal, neither wanting her

demands and badgering, her expectations even they

could not meet beyond Heaven’s Gates or Hell’s Domain:

the Pearly Gates were not clean enough for her,

and Hell, too much ash and dust, too hot.

Or perhaps, she was afraid of dying as we all are

when the death bell tolls – it tolls for thee –

and our souls aren’t ready to face the judgement seat,

some unconfessed sin, some guilt we harbor, some secret

so deep we judge ourselves and find ourselves

lacking, hell bound, an eternity of damnation, fire

and brimstone; this was her fear, for we discovered her secret

come to light when she finally succumbed to life’s ending,

slipping the bonds that held her here to face her judgement,

the eternalness beyond the grave, that great unknown

the poets and the pastors have tried to figure out,

ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and what comes next?

Heaven or Hell?  Nothing or something else,

more fearful, more blessed, eternal?

And that secret she carried, afraid

of its judgment, afraid even of death itself,

was a child unborn, aborted, taken from her womb,

a crime then, a shame, too, and a sin,

of love’s pleasures unwed and of a life

taken, a life ended, one sin to cover

another and the guilt, covered up, born

alone these long years, decades,

a secret hidden. Maybe she’d hoped

that by 100 years, it would be forgiven, be

forgotten, her death then welcomed, old age’s reward.

But it was not, for she could not forget, could not

forgive, not her, not God, not the Devil himself

with whom perhaps she’d bargained, and her judgement

awaited, her judgment on herself, an eternity

she could not change, nor could she face.

And carried thus, this secret, all these years,

her tortured life, punishing herself,

she died alone, a centenarian in a nursing home

uncomforted for the secret she carried

and the child she couldn’t love,

an expectation she could not achieve.