for Dean Lewis
I didn’t find a way.
To say goodbye, that is,
but they left anyway –
my mother as I struggled
to hurry my feeble
and uncooperative father
into the car so we could get
to the hospital
while there was still time.
My father only
a few months afterward
as I stood without my siblings
at his bedside
knowing he had grown
too deaf to hear anything
I might have thought to say.
It’s been twenty years.
I no longer believe
there actually is a way
to say goodbye.
Vera S. Scott
Written this morning as a reflection of the emotions captured by Dean Lewis in his amazing song How Do I Say Goodbye.
A reel of this was posted to TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRQsVKqc/