By: Claudia Ricci

 

Editor’s Note

Claudia’s poem “Praying for My Sister” is a stand-alone piece, however, once she submitted it, I asked her to write an introduction for the inspiration for the poem. Not because it required explaining, but to give readers and writers encouragement to write through their thoughts and feelings during difficult times.

Claudia’s Response:

Last September, the day before she turned 63, my sister Karen suffered a very serious brain hemorrhage. She required emergency surgery to remove a clot the size of a tennis ball from the left side of her brain. The doctors weren’t sure if she would recover from the stroke. Thankfully, she has done well in rehab, learning to walk again and to talk, with difficulty.

For me, there was only one response possible to this heartbreaking tragedy: poetry. It isn’t the first time that words have come to my rescue in a time of trouble. In 2002, I had lymphoma – I had a tumor the size of a cantaloupe in my chest.

Throughout the grueling chemo and radiation, I composed a collection of poems I called “Riding My Kite Through Lightning.” Those poems helped me to heal and to cope.

Poems to me are often like prayers. And so, today, I offer up another poem, hoping that words once again will work their magic.

 

 

____

Praying for My Sister

 

First, I remember this:

a vision of my sister

at maybe two or three.

She has chocolate hair,

cut in a bowl shape, and

a round happy face.

Later, when she outgrows it,

I will keep waiting for her to be

that sweet baby once again.

I am three years older than my sister.

One day, I am playing with my friends

down the street from the house that my dad built us

in Bristol, Connecticut when I notice my baby sister

making her way down the road.

I am horrified as she is naked from the waist down.

Barefoot too.  A very devilish little grin.

I am wearing a navy blue sweater.

I race to my sister’s side,

rip off my sweater

wrap it tight around her bare backside.

Did I carry her home or lead her by the hand?

When I get there, my mother tells me

my sister wet her pants. Mom sat her on the

back porch without a diaper.

Fast forward through the hellish

months when she wore a diaper

and a feeding tube.

My sister’s hair is very short.

a brown helmet on her head.

That vicious scar

where there were three dozen bloody staples on her scalp

is hidden.

She learned to walk again.

She learned to speak.

Two weeks ago,

on a cold January afternoon,

I didn’t expect to find her

sitting in the pitch black

bawling like a baby.

I took her in my arms

and kissed her head

and fed her words of love.

If words could heal

I would write without

stopping I would kiss her

daily I would do whatever

it takes to make her remember

that infinity of love

that we were born with.

Come, now, say this prayer

with me

that she may find the

spirit to believe in

miracles, and

the determination

to move her arm

again.

And that she has the

the courage to open

her heart and grin.

 

 

Bio: Claudia Ricci, Ph.D

 

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