Army Wife

For my grandmother

My Mimi is an Army wife. 

She took her three kids on a journey through

Germany, Italy, Holland, and Spain,

faithfully following her husband. 

She had war zones raging in her backyard, and 

heartache dropped on her front porch. 

She held hands across the street and 

kissed paper cuts to heal them. 

She could make dinner, help both her sons with homework,

and assure her husband that there are no bombs outside,

all at the same time.

~

My Mimi is an Army wife. 

She knows military ranks like the veins in her hands.

She is no stranger to artillery or the sound of bullets making contact

with plaster and flesh. 

She knows how to mend broken bones, 

and how to heal ringing ears. 

She is friends with death and the broken families that belong to

a soldier that did not make it home from the battlefield. 

Her soldiers always came home from the  battlefield. 

~

My Mimi is an Army wife. 

But she did not see the invasion of sickness

eating away at her husband's throat. 

She did not know what hospitals smell like until last summer.

She did not know that she would walk beside a soldier through

the side effects of chemo and radiation. 

As it tears away at his frail body,

trying to kill the illness, 

but killing him in the same process.

Her eyes are stained with IVs and surgical needles. 

~

But, my Mimi is an Army wife. 

She has fingers scarred by campfires,

and clothes stained with smoke. 

She adapted to the artillery of cancer. 

Her bones hum with the same tempo of a beeping monitor.

She sleeps on the couch in a hospital room,

thankful that it is not in the morgue. 

She does not see cancer as a struggle.

Because she has overcome far greater struggles.

My Mimi is an Army wife,

and against her, cancer is nothing. 

Author's Note

Written for my grandparents, the strongest people I know. Cancer is nothing against them.

Reviews

[Tom]

What a remarkable lady and this is a tremendous tribute to her endeavour and fortitude in the face of the sternest adversity !

A powerful emotional poem, penned with admirable aplomb!

[Daisy Morgy]

aww thats realy sweet! lovely meaning