Day 74

There was a poem my mother loved when I was a child. She quoted it to me regularly, particularly the last two lines. I remember them even now.

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

It’s a sad poem. A son begging his father not to give up, to keep fighting for life.

I know my mother saw me as her way of raging, her refusal “to go gentle into that good night.”

It’s such a burden.

If we are in a fight with nature, with the very passage of time, it’s a fight we started. And I know I’m supposed keep on fighting, to stand tall and declare “I am here! I cannot be moved!”

But the truth is the world took care of us. She took care of us for as long as she could. But we didn’t take care of her, and so poisoned ourselves.

I don’t want my death to be an act of war.

I want it to be an act of peace.