As You Lay Dying

As you lay dying swaddled with wintry sheets
Barely conscious and unable to recognize me
Or any of your family who shuffle in
Daily to awkwardly stare at you, emaciated
Perhaps hoping they'll make a difference
Perhaps hoping for a sense of closure
So that they can mourn you now
While you're still but barely alive
I'm reminded of the stories I've been told
The rumors, the gossip, and even then
Not much reached my ears.

I think of your colleague who looks so much younger
But studied with you at the university
He told me that while you were studying
You worked two jobs and gave blood to support your siblings
I'm trying to see something of that man left in you.
I think of my brother telling me that you taught yourself English
By reading Faulkner.
I wonder how he knew this
But then again, you always liked him more.
I saw The Sound and the Fury on your bookshelf, well-thumbed
But I was too young to recognize it,
And far too young to appreciate it.
I think of the feud my father told me about
Between you and an old family friend,
How you kept his son from coming to America with him
Because he was too young,
And how he didn't talk to you for years.
The son is an engineer in Maryland now -
The father retired in Buffalo.
I was told the two of you made peace years ago.
I remember the pride in my father's voice as we walked around Tufts
As he explained how you started an exchange program
Sending promising young Chinese students to the medical school.
I heard that same pride in the voice of another colleague
Showing me your articles, written in English and Chinese,
Telling me of the advances you made in... god knows what.

I try to think about what I remember of you,
And all I can see are hospitals and your quiet suffering
And how every few months my aunt calls to worry my father
Filling him with stress and dread as she describes your worsening condition
As he argues with my mother I can see his concern for you,
His anger at his inability to help,
And I think of his tentative hope when you recover slightly.
He will be mourning the death of a father,
A man he admired, who he was so proud of,
In who's footsteps he tried to follow and failed.
I think of your wife, all alone in your apartment
When your time comes and your family returns from America
She will notice the absence of her eldest son
He's been dead for months now, but for her
He would be freshly buried,
And she will have lost two of the most important men in her life at once.
I think of those doctors and scholars who talked to me
Sympathetically in the suite they gave you
They will mourn the death of a colleague,
The death of a dedicated teacher,
And the death of a friend.
I think of my cousins and my brother,
All of whom knew you better than I,
And they will lament the loss of a grandfather
Even though I know my brother will not be at your funeral.
And my mother, who you did not approve of,
Who's union with my father you and your wife at first condemned
Will shed a tear for you, because she's grown to care for you as well.
But I know that when I see you again
To pay my respects and say good bye
I will not be mourning a teacher, a friend,
A colleague, or even a grandfather.
I will be mourning the death of a stranger
Who I heard so much about,
But was never able to meet.