The Gift Poem by Bill Kamen

A cold December day,
Jennifer is home
in her bed.

Gravely ill,
suffering from cancer,
surrounded
by her family,
fading in and out of
consciousness.

For the first time
in months,
she could embrace Cindy,
her three-year old
granddaughter.

When Jennifer was in the hospital,
Cindy had been extremely
fearful of all the machines
next to her Grandmother.

Cindy gently ascended
onto her bed,
and they shared one precious
moment together,
before she fell back into
unconsciousness.

Suddenly,
she opened her eyes,
and her hands fervently reached upwards
towards the corner of the room.
With a faint whisper,
she said, ' My mother is here,
she looks so radiant.'

The family thought
she was hallucinating.
However. Marie,
Jennifer's ten-year-old
granddaughter said,
'Grandma where is she?
I can't see her.'
She said,
' you won't be able to see her,
she is here for me, not you.'

Jennifer glanced over to her
night stand,
and asked Michael, her husband, to
get her diary.

With her hands tightly clutched
around her diary,
she said, ' this is my Christmas gift
to my mother.'

Jennifer then closed
her eyes
and passed on.
It was Christmas Eve.