On the Death of My Son

By Susan Dunn
June 2000

The Angel of Death

Death is the cure for those who cannot heal …

This isn’t easy, you know

And let me explain to you, please,

What’s the hardest thing of all.

I was reading a poem

By a woman who had lost her child

And I came to the part

Where she’s telling others what she’s learned

And what she would do differently if she could,

If she’d known then what she knows now,

From having lost her child,

And I knew these things already

And these things I had already done.

He was the baby, you see,

The child of my old age,

And I was told he would be my last.

Would you not treasure, then, every moment?

And he was a sweet and easy baby,

A good-natured child with winning ways –

And I had watched his brother grow up too fast

And seen the walls too soon clean of handprints

And heard the halls no longer echo with the shouts of boys

And cats and dogs came and went; they don’t live that long.

I was older and my blood had thinned

And with it went my impatience over trivia

Such as handprints on a wall,

And with this child I was more like a grandparent

Full of wonder and gratitude for the marvelous gift I’d been given in him.

So I knew about appreciating every moment

Not taking anything for granted

Not wishing things away

How fast time it all goes by,

And how one regrets the things one regrets…

So I treasured every moment

And held him dear to me,

And lived every sweet moment in the moment,

And have it emblazoned on my heart,

And still he was taken from me.

This isn’t easy, you see.

Susan Dunn was raised Episcopalian but has devoted a large part of her adult life to Ecumenical endeavors with a variety of religious and humanitarian concerns. Regrettably, she has not found her religious beliefs to be of much consolation.

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