The Sunday Poem/Song: December

Today is my surviving grandmother’s 94th birthday. She’s in hospice now, near the end of her life. I’ve written various things about my grandparents before, and even my great-grandmother, but today I wanted to share one that wasn’t written as a poem, but as a song, at a time when her husband, my grandfather, was failing. It’s on After the Flood, and it’s called “December.” You can follow along the lyrics with the song:

December

Her hair is white, who knows what she sees,
Her hip is giving her trouble.
She listens to her husband’s heartbeat;
In his sleep she hears him mumble.
Their granddaughter was by to visit today;
They took time to talk in the kitchen.
Eleanor said, “You’ve spent forty years
Just in learning how to listen…
But it’s another December.
Things are drawing to a close and everybody knows
That near the end we tend to forget
All the years gone before.”

What were the words he said when they first met?
When their first child was born?
She’s never thought too much about death,
Too much to do in the mornings.
And he wakes with a start, hand at his chest,
She reaches to keep him from leaving.
Fingers at his wrist and he coughs and smiles,
Says, “Guess I’m in the habit of breathing…
But it’s another December.
Things are drawing to a close and everybody knows
That near the end we tend to forget
All the years gone before.”

He snores his way back to sleep
And she hugs her lacy pillow.
Remembers a night when she first undressed
And stood naked with him before a mirror.
“Nothing has changed,” she thought, “we still do the same—
We stand exposed together.
I’ve spent forty years—if I have forty hours, well,
Every tomorrow is forever…
But it’s another December
And look, the sun already rose, and everybody knows
That near the end we tend to forget
How much there is to do in the mornings.”

And she said, “Wake up, dear.
It’s a beautiful day.”