Loss Poem by Nancy Trembley

My mother-in-law and father-in-law
Lost their daughter Suzy on June 2nd 2015.
It was a Tuesday.
I'll never forget.
It was so hard to watch their stoic pain.
I can't imagine… I'm a mother too.
I can't imagine what they were going through.
Watching their child die, it was so unfair.
She had an adult form of Muscular Dystrophy
And she was on disability.
Then all of a sudden one day she couldn't stand.
And to our horror she was diagnosed
With a very aggressive case of Leukemia.
She was gone just a few weeks later.
So, sudden and sad, so cruel and incomprehensible.
There were five children total but now there were four.
Then just ten years later, their youngest son out of three,
Who also had MD and was in a nursing home, also on disability.
Wheelchair bound, younger than most there, but happy.
Not the best way to live one's life.
But he was smart and funny and had a nice personality
He had lots of friends there, and made the best of it.
Then all of a sudden, this man in his forties,
Wasn't feeling so good.
The nurse took his blood pressure,
And looked away to write it down,
And when she looked back he was gone.
I watched these two people yet again lose another
Only now a son.
What would I do, how would I cope, how I would suffer?
Then poor Mary, my mother-in-law,
But more just Mother.
Took one more punch to her gut.
When the night before her son's remembrance,
Her husband, of so many years, couldn't take this
Loss yet again.
His poor heart and soul decided to join his beloved children.
This woman, this mother, her strength so incredible
In her sorrow, she's my hero.
Despite all her loss and pain this matriarch,
And what know,
Is she will always be there for her remaining brood,
Including me,
Into tomorrow.
Because that's what she is wired to do,
But more importantly she wants to.
She's so beautiful and awesome and I will always love her!