Who am I to stop them?

“They did the best they could”
This line kept repeating,
As the time my father looked away.
The time he told me he once wished Louis had died

- If only to spare him.

No one thinks their child will suffer,
From the inside out.
Or that suffering should follow – so persistently;
The life they had planned was gone forever.

Knowing this lets me forgive,

I think, as I watch the light
Pour slowly through the pine shades
To form solid beams that crash into my blue wall
As the dust rises.

I should rest. Days of lying here, this Goddamn fever.

But this heat has let me see; I see them as never before:
Two who trusted in God to save;
Two with a dying child, my big brother, now so frail.
Two that "did the best they could"..

All were helpless. There is no blame.

“If only I could…“
Tears rolled.
They still do –
And who am I to stop them?