Sweet Old Kiss, by Jonel Hanopol

It seems that whenever I talk to my old friends these days, it’s only a matter of time until the conversation turns to the tribulations and rewards of caring for elderly parents. It’s a bittersweet topic, one that inevitably brings up feelings about our own mortality. I think it’s important to remind ourselves that everything we’re going through is part of the natural cycle of life, and as scary and overwhelming as each new stage may be, we owe it to ourselves to go forth bravely and experience all that life has to offer us.

With this in mind, I want to share a poem by Tony Hoagland that I recently discovered. I’d like to dedicate this not only to my oldest and dearest friends, but to all of you who have experienced the complex and contradictory emotions brought up by caring for an elderly parent. Hear the poet read it here.

Lucky

If you are lucky in this life,
you will get to help your enemy
the way I got to help my mother
when she was weakened past the point of saying no.

Into the big enamel tub
half-filled with water
which I had made just right,
I lowered the childish skeleton
she had become.

Her eyelids fluttered as I soaped and rinsed
her belly and her chest,
the sorry ruin of her flanks
and the frayed gray cloud
between her legs.

Some nights, sitting by her bed
book open in my lap
while I listened to the air
move thickly in and out of her dark lungs,
my mind filled up with praise
as lush as music,

amazed at the symmetry and luck
that would offer me the chance to pay
my heavy debt of punishment and love
with love and punishment.

And once I held her dripping wet
in the uncomfortable air
between the wheelchair and the tub,
until she begged me like a child

to stop,
an act of cruelty which we both understood
was the ancient irresistible rejoicing
of power over weakness.

If you are lucky in this life,
you will get to raise the spoon
of pristine, frosty ice cream
to the trusting creature mouth
of your old enemy

because the tastebuds at least are not broken
because there is a bond between you
and sweet is sweet in any language.