Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
Twenty five years,
That’s what you were given
For your life.
Two dozen years in health,
From diagnosis to death,
Just over a year,
Twenty five years.
“Fuck Cancer!” you wrote
On your Face Book.
You embraced your suffering
With grace
Without complaint
Your smile ever shining,
Big bright eyes
and courage in both hands.
A cancer journey it’s called!
A journey no one chooses to embark on.
But it’s random fate for so many
Genetics?
Environment?
Unanswered questions.
Too many lives
So much pain
Too much suffering.
“Fuck cancer!”
It was cancer
That took your sweet Mother
Less than a year before.
Mother of six
Aged 47
Hope placed in a stem cell transplant
“Remission”
A green light to travel
Hallelujah!
The thrill and joy lasted only
A matter of weeks.
Your dream was to fly to Greece
With your best friend Ilyanka,
Gorgeous girls with sparkling smiles.
That’s the trip you dreamt of taking.
The Parthenon you saw from afar
Not enough energy to climb to the
Top of the Acropolis.
Goddess Athena
Could not equip you
To survive
To live
Fate took over.
“Fuck cancer!”
Taken ill after five days.
Your beloved brother by your side,
Within a week of arrival
You took your last breath.
Hippocrates Hospital
Thessaloniki was to be the sacred place
Of your reposed soul,
And still body.
Where a cousin Constantine
Who had taken the same journey
Passed away
Ten years before.
Twenty five years
That’s what you were given
Beautiful Despina
Aged twenty five.
Red tape.
Bureaucratic obstacles.
Your body flown back.
Like Snow White
In a white coffin
Wearing your black beanie
And a white shroud
Covering the wounds
Of autopsy.
A funeral and a white coffin
That was your destiny
Not a white wedding dress
Nor a wedding dance with your beau
A choir sings the Requiem
Angelic voices reaching the heavens
Songs and prayers
Your soul rose
Transcendence
To the Infinite
Twenty five years,
Just blossomed into
Womanhood,
Beaming in your beauty.
You Took it all with grace
Without complaint
Not a fuss.
You did it your way.
Only twenty five.
Theia Soula
Anastasia
Panayiotidis
A white coffin
Not a white wedding dress
A funeral
Not a wedding dance
With the love of your life
Lying in it like Snow White
With your beanie covering your head
Covering the wounds of an autopsy