For in Him, we live, move, and have our being, as also some of your poets have said...Apostle Paul, Acts 17:28
 

Mercy, No!
 

Victim of stroke.  Victim of penury.  Victim of "family care".
Tucked out of sight.  Cold and dreary attic.  Placed in old rocking chair.

Sunrise to sunset.  Facing dirt-streaked window. Spilling her bladder there.
Balled, blue-veined fists.  Linked perseverance. Humiliating affair.
 

Today, a sparrow.  Beyond the window.  Perched on a telephone line.
Scarred telephone pole.  Reminds her of The Cross.  Lingers in her mind...

God's amazing grace!  Spared total paralysis.  Mind, still intact.
Able to think.  To understand.  To pray.  Ever so grateful for that.

Face grotesque.  Right side drooping.  Slobbering
grunts and groans.  Despair.
Family "visits".  Once a day.  Act like she's not even there.

Tonight, huddled.  Bizarre little pod.  Nodding.  One accord.
Sinister whispers.  Secret disclosed.  Grandson locked the door!
 

Icy hand of fear.  Creeping up her spine.  Gripping
her thundering heart.
"Ahhrr-rrr," she breathes. Her mind perceives. "AHR-RRGH!"  Body spasms.  Fists apart.

Doctor deviates from group.  Hypodermic in hand.  Looking quite insane!
"It's all right, Grandmother."  Spoken with conviction.  "For I will end your pain."
 

Last thought:
"Oh God, forgive him
his sin and his blindness;
he truly believes...he is
 KILLING ME, WITH KINDNESS!"
 

C.2006 Rhonda S. Galizia  All Rights Reserved.
Published, Best Poems of 1998
Recorded, Sound of Poetry
 

*Being the [step] daughter of an MD who served Mankind for 50 years, I am always painfully aware of so-called "medical advances".  Just because one may achieve a desired purpose, does not mean it is to be condoned as a practice!  i.e. Euthanasia.
 

This poem was particularly hard for me to post today, for two reasons:
[1] Just three years after it was published, I had a massive stroke of my own!  No matter what people think, we can and do hear everything you say - even if we can't respond.

[2]The untimely and ungodly murder of Teri Shivo.  I still get sick over it...Way back in the 1980's, Papa said, man was stepping on God's Feet, meaning man was usurping authority that was never meant to be his.  I take my comfort in knowing that God Himself is Teri's Avenger!
 

##I hereby dedicate this to her lovely memory.##
 

~ There is a way...which seems right to men, but the ends, thereof,...are the ways of death...Proverbs 14:12  ~