Making a Fist

For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,

I felt the life sliding out of me,

a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.

I was seven, I lay in the car

watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.

My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.



"How do you know if you are going to die?"

I begged my mother.

We had been traveling for days.

With strange confidence she answered,

"When you can no longer make a fist."



Years later I smile to think of that journey,

the borders we must cross separately,

stamped with our unanswerable woes.

I who did not die, who am still living,

still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,

clenching and opening one small hand.

~Naomi Shihab Ni

My Aunt died suddenly Saturday and hearing my mother's account of the last few hours reminded me of this poem. My Aunt couldn't keep fighting though after her massive heart attack and the hospital she went to seemed ill equipped to treat her.

The saddest part wasn't the funeral however, but rather the reminder of the fractures present in our family. Betrayals and fights and bitterness cast a dark cloud over an already sad time.

I took myself out of the loop a long time ago because I found it hard to follow who was mad at who and why. Part of me wants to retreat again to safer ground and leave it all behind, but I feel called to jump into the fray again. I feel called to not give up...to never stop making a fist when it comes to my family.