Dying from cigarette cancer

The Pulse of Being, A Chistmas Song

The collective sigh
In the whispered breathing
Of the bellows in balance
So the sound is overlooked
Except at moments
When the community
Raises its voice as one
To capture the collective
Inchoate yearning
For the fulfillment
Of a longing
Born with that first breath,
The sound condensed
Like tears of rain
In the words,
Oh come all ye faithful.
Joyful and triumphant,
Oh come all ye citizens,
Oh come you belongers,
You strivers,
You lovers,
You suffering reachers,
You prayers,
You hopers,
You dreamers,
You kneeling beseechers,
Come, come into this gathering
Of breathers
And mingle your being
In the consciousness
That was from the beginning
Is now,
And ever shall be,
Song without end.
JM

Poetry is inexplicable. The words come from some self producing unconscious source. And I find myself the scribe, the gospel writer. It's not something I set out to write and follow some formula to accomplish. I'm glad it captures some meaning for you and I hope others.
Tunie has had a tremendous will to survive and a hope, even perhaps to the moment she went back to smoking, that she could beat this thing. I would not have tolerated all she has been thru.
She is more heroic than any person I have known. Maybe I was just too ignorant or too distant from the scene to know that when my father in law died from colon cancer and then my father from jaw cancer--and my mother in intensive care gasping for moments for each final breath for two days dying from congestive heart failure.
If you remember nothing else of your sister, remember her indomitable courage. She could have quit any time in the past two years. She didn't have to keep going thru chemo. She chose that. She didn't have to continue radiation. She chose that. She didnt have to get the brain operation. She chose that. She didn't have to go throu the sterotactic procedure. She chose that. Two years of painful choices with continuing consequences and an end that the statistics predicted from the start. Two years.
And she went thru it all with grace and dignity, did not complain, did not blame anybody, have any anger, and maintained her respect for others always.
Maybe you are too distant to have understood Tunie's choices--but don't forget them or her hunger to keep going.
Jerry