Bedside manner
==============

* Michael J Passmore

*   End of life care

> > Then there came a time
> > 
> > when my body was set free
> > 
> > by the lost memory
> > 
> > of my mother's loving eyes,
> > 
> > my body set free
> > 
> > to glide high riding
> > 
> > impossibly silent
> > 
> > flowing snowy slopes,
> > 
> > my body set free
> > 
> > to slide skinny
> > 
> > slip-stream strokes through
> > 
> > black and frigid crater lakes.
> > 
> > Set free by a memory
> > 
> > or was it just
> > 
> > wishful thinking
> > 
> > and not a lost memory at all,
> > 
> > not lost like the riding
> > 
> > and sliding.
> 
> > So now here I lie
> > 
> > convinced that I
> > 
> > am ready to die,
> > 
> > quivering butterfly wings
> > 
> > pinned to crisp white linens.
> > 
> > Here you come now
> > 
> > to my side,
> > 
> > a newborn's cry
> > 
> > meeting mother
> > 
> > eye-to-eye.
> > 
> > What is this gift that
> > 
> > you ask of precious me
> > 
> > like a beggar
> > 
> > kneeling beside my bed
> > 
> > holding my hand
> > 
> > you say
> > 
> > I love you
> > 
> > and I will stay here with you.

## Footnotes

*   Competing interests None

*   Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.