"Chairing Mary"

Seamus Heaney, '95 Nobel Prize laureate, wrote:

CHAIRING MARY

Heavy, helpless, carefully manhandled
Upstairs every night in a wooden chair
She sat in all day as the sun sundialled
Window-splays across the quiet floor.

Her body heat had entered the braced timber
Two would take hold of, by weighted leg and back,
Tilting and hoisting, the one on the lower step
Bearing the brunt, the one reversing up

Not averting eyes from her hurting bulk,
And not embarrassed, but never used to it,
I think of her warm brow we might have once
Bowed to and kissed before we kissed it cold.

Published in The New Yorker, June 27, 2005, and used without permission

Almost two years ago I read this poem and was mightily moved. I was still lifting Mother from chair to bed, to wheelchair, to stair glide, etc. etc. I even made a page with pictures and all.....but, having been raised with non-demonstrative love, I found it impossible to bow to and kiss Mother's warm brow. For a while. One night I kissed Mother's brow at the last relax-and-good-night ritual. Then, recently, I found myself kissing that brow at other times, and always last thing at night. It has become familiar now, what was so difficult and unfamiliar before. Mother always smiles.

Thank you, Seamus Heaney, I'm glad I once could shake your hand.