Bath Time

I wrote this poem for our son three years ago when he was just a few months old.   Oh how I send out this prayer to whoever will take care of my son as an old man when I have passed away.

Bath Time
I am in the tub with my four month old son
holding his plump, new body in my lap
enjoying our leisurely exchange of
smile and laughs
as I wash his back and under his chin
behind his ears and between his toes,

when suddenly
it hits me
someday, hopefully a long time from now,
I will be gone

and there will come a time
when my son will be an old man
too frail to bathe himself
and someone else will need to hold
his fragile, old body
wash his back and under his chin
behind his ears and between his toes
and I will not
be
there
to make sure they are kind to my son.

I am overcome with the primal panic
of a mother who cannot protect her child.
A grief I’ve never known before
grips my ribs and turns my stomach.

I am softly crying now – my tears mixing
with our warm bath water
as my son still smiles and giggles
and I continue to bathe him.

I breathe in deeply and then finally
let go
of that breath.
After a few moments I say to the grief,

“Yes, that is right, I will not
be
there.”

I send a out a prayer
to the nurse’s aid or hospice worker
my son’s wife or grown child
asking them to watch me now

as I gently rub a sweet lather
with a soft cloth and patient hands
over my son’s trusting, vulnerable body.

And I pray that they can sense
how this now old man
was once so lovingly bathed

and they will wash his back and under his chin
behind his ears and between his toes

with the tenderness of a new mother.

Lisa A. McCrohan, © 2007

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