Memories

She Smiles and She Laughs

She laughs,
and she smiles

Unaware of this thing

Growing inside.

Today she’s watching

Her daughter playing in the bath,

She laughs

And she smiles.

Not knowing,

She’ll never have another child,

Because already the cells

Have begun too divide.

She laughs,

And she smiles,

As she throws her head back,

Today the girls are hitting a round of golf.

She’s unaware of the mass growing inside,

The cancer cells don’t repair

But they still divide and

Attach together like cement,  

She laughs

And she smiles,

As the girls have morning tea,

They laugh as children play on the swings,

Not knowing

Of the mass now

Growing rapidly inside,

Soon she won’t feel up to a cup tea.

She laughs

And still smiles,

Even though she feels tired,

She smiles at the little girl playing on the floor.

Unaware deadly cells

Have just pushed

Through the bowel wall

And there to they gather and begin to multiply.

She laughs

And she smiles,

As she peeps through the door,

She sees her girl playing in her room.

Still not knowing

Of the invader growing,

Inside her womb,

That killer is about to be announce,

She laughs

And she smiles,

Curled up in the arms of her man,

She’s been tired for days and doesn’t know why,

Unaware of the killer,

That’s been growing inside,

She pops to the loo,

And discovers there's blood in the bowl,

She laughs it off,

And flashes her smile,

Coffee and cake,

Take her mind off it for a while,

Meanwhile the mass

That’s been growing inside,

Is trying to break and enters,

Into the lung.

Today there’s no laugher,

There’s been more blood in the bowl,

She cries so we don’t see her smile,

She’s been to the doctor and had lots of tests.

Now she knows of the masses inside,

The doctors think it started in an ovary,

It’s in her bowel and there’s a spot in the lung,

A full hysterectomy at the age of thirty-one,

Instead of her laugh,

We hear the anguish of her cry,

Tomorrow is her surgery,

She cries for two children she wanted one day.

She’s wheeled into surgery,

And the truth of her killer soon revealed,

They take out the uterus ovaries and all,

Sadly they’ve also taken her bowel.

She wakes and her smile breaks,

As she looks at the man that she loves,

Until they tell things just didn’t look good,

Today there’s no laughter, only tears in her eyes.

She’s had three months of radiation,

And almost a year of chemo on and off,

That spot on her lung has grown some more,

She cries as the doctors say they can do no more.

For a few more months she laughs with her daughter,

And smiles through the long days of pain,

She curls into the strong arms of her man,

She’s now just so weak.

She tries to hold her head up and laugh,

Instead all she can do is smile at her child,

Reflecting how much she’s grown,

As she plays with her father, on the front lawn.

The laugh is now silent,

No more I see her smile,

I can’t help these tears that roll down my face,

As I describe her laugh and the smile on her face.

Debbie Chilton Copyright (c) 2011 (August)

All Rights Reserved