what if…? (a moan to my dead daughter)
by Carolyn Ristau, Alyssa’s mom

‘What if #1’
What if the nurse stepped out for a coffee, a pee, a chat?
It was after all, New Years Day,
A hard day to be working.
And what if that was the moment the machines with their complex numbers hinted to the knowing that something was not quite, something was not quite right.

What if the medicines ganged up against each other?
What if they hadn’t?

What if she just needed food - something dripped into her veins]
(yes, maybe she was hungry; I would have been, not eating for so long)

what if ‘within the normal range’ (that’s what the specialist said about the numbers)
was just not ‘normal’ for her hard working body and brain?

What if she had gone to herbalists? What if she had not?

What if that fall so many years ago, when just a kid, had not happened?
Did it do anything; did we just imagine it?

What if she hadn’t dared to try, to play as hard as she had, to grab life as she had?

[what if my energies had been all there for her during those hours we didn’t know were her last?
I was distracted, at a movie, to while away the time til they would let us see her.
I left her side for my energies were then shared with my friend, who thought to ease the strain with the movie.
What if it were all a spiritual thing and the love-thirsty young daughter that she always was,
didn’t want to share? Needed then all my energies?]

What if I believed in spiritual things?
what if I did not?
What if I knew the answers to all these things?
what if I did not?

…would my daughter still be here?

what if her small, tired body just said, ‘STOP.’
(I don’t believe it, don’t believe it, don’t believe it)
and she wasn’t tired; she was strong.

[What if it was a blessing? for many worse days might lie ahead?]
a blessing?, a blessing?

What if the sun doesn’t shine one day?

what if…?

…what if?

what if………?

my daughter might die.

…she did.

‘What if #2’
what if…
what if she had seen a doctor way back when; what if she hadn’t?
…what if she went to Africa? (she got sick then and never really got better; yes, she got all better)
…what if she never went to Africa?

What if she never kissed a boy, fell in love, made love, ate soup, jumped rope, made salads, or stroked her cat?

What if she never painted, never wrote a song, never sang, never played her guitar?

What if her tears never fell, her smile never shone, her blue eyes never searched your face?

What if her barbs never stung, her laugh never cackled or roared or hooted

well, then, she wouldn’t have lived her life.
But she did these things
And she lived her life.

…except it was short
and we miss her.

poems by mom