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WHY
DOES MOMMY HAVE CANCER?
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| www.robertmargetts.com |
The little boy sat in the rocking
chair
in his parents’ bedroom,
rocking because it was the only
motion
left in a room otherwise stilled by
grief.
Forward.
Backward.
Forward.
Backward.
His body held rigid,
his mind drifting loose,
his small hands
wrapped around the rails
as the chair creaked in time
with the indifferent ticking of the
clock.
He opened his dry mouth,
looked toward his father
a man seated at the edge of the bed,
fingers laced around his wife’s hand
as she labored for breath,
each inhale a fragile thread
thinning toward silence.
The boy pressed his lips together,
summoned the courage
children should never need,
and asked,
“Why does Mommy have cancer?”
He was only ten,
yet he understood enough
from television dramas,
from whispered conversations
on the playground,
from the way his classmates said
“The Big C”
as though naming it softly
might keep it at a distance.
His school desk
still bore her initials,
carved into the wood
a small act of permanence
in a world that had begun to feel
frighteningly temporary.
He knew cancer was bad.
He knew it meant
some people did not return.
“Dad…” he said,
“Is Mommy going to die?”
His father turned towards him,
knowing the truth
afraid to show his venerability
eyes swollen,
still clutching her cold hand
as though warmth might return
if he simply refused to let go.
He looked at his son,
voice trembling,
and whispered,
“Yes… Mommy is going to die.”
The words emerged slowly,
as though each one cut
its way through him.
She was only thirty‑eight
Far too young to leave,
too young to be stollen.
He loosened his grip
on her lifeless hand
and brushed away the tears
that would not stop falling.
He looked at her one last time
his high school sweetheart,
the girl he once kissed
behind the bleachers,
the woman
who had carried their dreams with a
quiet,
steady grace.
Now
she lay still,
hair tangled,
face bare,
a figure already half‑departed
from the world she once filled.
Her eyes closed.
A faint smile touched her lips
relief,
perhaps,
or the soft mercy of pain finally
ending.
Her cold hand
rested on a cross,
palm open,
awaiting the nail to be driven,
as though offering itself to a
presence
he could not see.
The father gathered himself,
looked at his son,
and shook his head.
Tears slid down his cheeks
like rain on a windshield,
wipers slapping back and forth
against a world gone blurred
passing the stranded cars along the
highway,
passing the soaked hitchhikers
with their wet thumbs
pointing forward
in hopes of a ride.
Water the enemy,
clarity the cure
as he imagined the long road ahead,
just him and the boy,
moving through a life
suddenly missing its center.
He drove with both hands
Digging into the steering wheel
Driving past everything
And everyone.
He cleared his throat,
blew a breath through cracked lips,
and said,
“Mommy is gone.”
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| www.robertmargetts.com |
What is the meaning of this poem?
This poem is about the exact moment a child realizes:
parents are not invincible
life is not guaranteed
death is real
love cannot stop it
It is the moment childhood ends.
