Cancer Poetry

Here’s a poem I wrote about my Dad’s battle with lung cancer, and my own grief after his death. I really wish you were here today, Dad.

Miss you Dad, your smile, and your sense of humour about life. Although cancer spelled an end to your life, it never defeated your gentle, ironic spirit.

Even when you were told you had cancer that had spread to your spine you didn’t lose your appreciation for life: “It’s been a good run,” you said simply and eloquently.

Snapshots of My Father

By Barbara Boughton

In the shadows, time passes,
waits for you.
Your hand reaches up,
holding your forehead with worry,
your thin restless legs,
jutting out from under the covers.

Last evening the nurse’s uniform grew bloody
as you tried to fight yourself up from bed
out of this antiseptic-smelling hollow place.
I’ve got to go home, you said,
where you could escape the descending unknown.

Daddy, how I wish
you could push open the door to our house once again
and I could greet your quizzical smile
with a whooping tomboy shout,
rifling through your pockets with pleasure,
you stooping carefully towards me,
I hunting through jangling coins for
a half-torn off package,
your favorite sweet, fragrant spearmint gum.