Elizabeth Edwards RIP

The news today 12/08/2010 included the death of Elizabeth Edwards from a rampaging, virulent breast cancer. Here death was expected but not within the hours from the announcements yesterday of her condition. Death of a parent when children are still young is never a pretty sight and one can only pray for comfort for the children. Elizabeth did not roll up and await the boatman; she lived her life to the fullest while enduring the pain of an unfaithful husband who sired a child while they were still married (thank God we as a country were spared the pain as he failed in his quest for the Democratic nomination to run as Presdident in 2,000. A mother to the end and the reports of her death prompted this poem.

Elizabethan Painter
We are all born with a clean slate and plenty of paint
And brushes bold and brushes fine or faint
The scenes varied, vibrant but never cast in concrete
Victories painted today may be repainted as defeats
Scenes of virtue or scenes we paint to delete
The joys of marriage stolen by a cheat
The mural of life painted could be all we leave
Memories on a mental canvas as mourners come to grieve
There are many roles we can choose to play
Many paths to choose and how to weigh
But one choice that for all does not exist
No matter what we do, no matter how we resist
What final role to play as a brave woman in great pain
Stroking boldly to keep her emotions in reign
It is to be the role of mother to the very end
Look out for the children until the boatman comes to send
“If you believe you will never die
Raise your hand, raise it high”
She knew their hands had tons of weight
No way to escape our common fate
Today, the cans have been drained of paint
When the mural dries, images of strokes of saint
Even with death coming in a hyper rush
Right to the end she never dropped her brush
Hopefully her ex still has some drops of paint of better fiber and hue
To paint over the poor choices made that he must surely rue.
(c) Michael P. Ridley December 8, 2010