Poems: Erin

Erin

Erin went into Lancaster Hospital on Sunday. 

She died Friday. 

Friday was not a good day. 

She was buried Sunday.  All twelve years of her. 

They later diagnosed that her fatality it had something to do with arthritis shutting down her very organs.

 She wouldn't eat, couldn't eat. 

I brought her cheeseburgers from McDonalds -- happy meals in the pediatric ward. 

Last meals.  Last suppers. 

Complete with little puzzles to play with. 

It was a bigger puzzle for the adults.

Erin of the eyes wide, eyebrows arched in happiness, but those same eyes scared.

"What's happening?" those eyes asked. 

At first Erin smiled.  It was such a bother, her stuck at the hospital. 

She loved school. 

She didn't want to miss choir practice. 

She had things to do, but she was so tired.

By the middle of the week the smile came more forced. 

Twinkling behind a dimming eye. 

Dimming behind a twinkling eye.

Driving home Thursday afternoon, I tried to cut a deal with God. 

I tried to negotiate with this God of vengeance, a God demanding sacrifice, a brutal and unreasoning God. 

Dear God, did I hate God. 

I argued with this old God driving those miles from the hospital.  If it's death you want, then if I were to drive my car into this approaching telephone pole, then you'd be appeased, right? 

Sacrifice right?  Kill me, spare her.

To this day I'm not sure if it were cowardice or reason that prevented me and stayed my hand. 

But I do know that if I were this mad, I can only imagine the madness and panic of Erin's parents.

Friday afternoon, as expected, the pediatrician came into the waiting room and told the parents the news. 

They were too exhausted to weep. 

They refused to go into the darkened alcove room of the intensive care unit, with its white sheets and plastic bags hanging on silver poles. 

Gurgles and beeps came from the shadows, where nurses tiptoed. 

Stainless steel. 

I followed him, a hollow substitute for parents who could not.

Her little body was tucked tight into the hospital bed. 

Sheets were clean and stiff. 

I stood on one side, the doctor on the other. 

A prayer weakly was spoken. 

I looked up to see the doctor crying.  "I didn't know what to do."

Where's the magic wand when you need one? 

Where's the magic words when you have nothing to say, when you should say nothing?

She died on Friday, two days before Valentine's day. 

Sunday afternoon the funeral service was held at her church. 

We rolled the small casket between the congregation and the communion table. 

The parents and her brother sat to the left, stone cold. 

The congregation sobbed, wept, sniffled. 

There were too many to seat everyone. 

The men stood on the steps in the vestibule. 

I tried to say something profound, but mostly ended up bleeding inside my mouth, biting hard with the back molars, lest the welling tears leak out. 

The pastor must stand. 

Words must be said. 

He must stand.

The pallbearers, six men and women, our church elders, carried the little casket out the sanctuary door. 

It was so light. 

With me preceding, they went down the back porch steps into the cemetery behind the church. 

Fifty paces to her grave. 

A solitary grave. 

This was not a gravesite the parents had planned on purchasing.  The mother looked around at the names on the tombstones near to see who her daughter would rest beside.

A few words were muttered. 

Few could listen. 

The benediction, choking, was given. 

The crowd drifted to the Fellowship Hall for cookies and coffee.

I watched all leave. 

I really didn't want to leave Erin alone. 

It was my job to see it through. 

Undertaker signaled to gravedigger. 

The lever was tripped and the coffin lowered into the grave, only to hit the vault. 

The undertaker looked down. 

The vault they had installed to hold the coffin was too small.

I remember wincing, then smiling odd. 

Erin didn't fit her grave. 

Her coffin was too large to fit the grave. 

Maybe that is how it should be:  the grave refusing to receive her.

The next morning, in secret, the undertaker and I stood at the grave to try again. 

A larger vault had been placed below during the night. 

The casket descended, straps unrolling, gears clicking. 

This time the grave took her. 

I took a clod from the dirt pile and dropped it onto her coffin. 

Earth to earth. 

Even little girls.