THE BRAVEST ONE

THE BRAVEST ONE
(FOR PAULA)

The bravest one I’ve ever known, refused to be a prisoner to her fate,
When you asked how she was, her reply was “fucking great.”
The bravest one I’ve ever known was my irreverent friend,
A woman who slew cancer, ‘til it got its second wind.

First I saw her jaundiced eyes and knew her liver had been shot to hell.
Metastasis will do that, it is evil and it wishes no one well.
And yet she drove to work each day, the first one there, the last to leave.
In love with deadlines and with hope and punctuality.
Few matched her in devotion, there were few who even dared to try,
Hard work has fallen out of favor, in the younger generation’s eyes.
A paycheck at the end of the week is all the striving’s for,
But for her the work it mattered and her legacy mattered more.
Not to be seen as a quitter, not to use illness as an excuse.
Hard times had come and stood by her side, she was ten paychecks in arrears when she died,
Yet what mattered was her loyalty and sailing against the wind.
And perhaps that’s what brought us together as friends.

Two weeks before she quit working she took a week of lunch breaks.
And allowed herself a cup of hot tea, or perhaps a vanilla milk shake.
Yet she never gave herself to pity, on those sunny days we drove to the park.
To drink our coffee and our tea, to not fall victim to the dark.

The bravest one I’ve ever known never forgot a kindness,
The thank you, the friendship, the housewarming cards,
That shone a light and conquered the blindness.
The blindness we all sometimes see on this cold, unfeeling earth.
She knew the value of a laugh, she knew what a smile was worth.

The bravest one I’ve ever known had faults and she had flaws,
I paint her here not as a saint, she put up her fair share of walls.
Walls that sometimes shut me out, chilly as an autumn breeze.
Stony silences and stubbornness, she had her share of these.
And yet I think she needed these to fight her battles, win her wars.
To gather up the bravery to go where none had gone before.
And now as I look back through tears and cherish her sweet memory,
And ponder all the lives into which her light has shone,
I hope one day to be half as brave, as the bravest one I’ve known.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2010
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED