I Was Worried About You

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The phone hearing that was spoiled by the car accident was part of the rigid and unfair unemployment system that allows an employer to tell obvious lies, and then win by default if the employee for any reason doesn't make the hearing. There was no willingness to look at the facts of the car accident and no willingness to re-schedule the hearing to another time when Brian would not have been so shaken up, and I would have been able to write him a good script to explain why he deserved his compensation.

I Was Worried About You


Before Brian's life was lost,
My life was almost cost;
I was physically hurt--in despair and grief--and so much pain.
I lay in a hospital bed.
I wondered how close I had come to being dead.
Because of that sudden accident, when our car was hit.
My neck, my back, my leg, were hurting bad;
And I knew all the money I had worked for would go down the drain,
Because I could not now mentally focus on the hearing for it.
The sum of all my suffering had made me, for a moment, mad.
Now, the brief unfamiliar madness had passed; but I was still deeply sad.
So I lay there, in utter despair.
I looked up at the lights in the ceiling.
I felt surrounded by people who had little or no feeling
For me, for the value of my life, for my feelings; I was just a job.
Of course, they didn't know me.  Also, so many patients they see,
Many with much worse conditions, apparently, than they see in me,
They've lost whatever human feeling they ever had for us, all empathy.
Just a job, a fly-by, who might live or die--either way, just another day.
I lay there, wondering why so many terrible things had happened.
So many bad things.  And, now, we would lose all that money.
The next day was the day of the hearing, which would have awarded.
How does that saying go?--sort of silly--"So bad, it isn't even funny."
An accident from nowhere, that we could not have afforded,
Suddenly struck--incredibly bad luck--the path of time misshapened.
The ambulance had carried me here, leaving my precious friend behind.
With a hospital phone, I phoned another friend : "Please go help Brian."
I didn't know if the car could still run.  "Give him a ride home, please."
The friend asked me which hospital and which room I was in.
Then, I lay there, in utter despair.  Money to help us, now out the door.
With these headaches and neck pain and back pain and leg pain,
I knew I would not be able to write a cogent paper for the hearing.
All the previous work that I had done would be in vain.
My life seemed to be only suffering, sorrowing, regretting, and fearing.
Cancer and its costs, afflicting me, and now also Brian my best friend.
So many of our efforts and hopes, stifled, stopped, as by this accident.
My painful present, fearful future, regretful past--what was I living for?
I had forgotten the blessings of life--past and present, and yes, future too.
I lay there, in deepening despair.  Then, suddenly, someone walked in.
Brian walked into the room.  Completely unexpectedly.  He looked at me,
And asked me how I was.  I was so happy to see him!  I told him so;
I had forgotten my best blessing of all, to have this precious caring friend.
I told him I had been feeling despair, but that now that he was there,
I had remembered all my blessings.  The lost money?  I didn't even care.
"Thank you for coming, Brian," I said.  I no longer felt alone.  I knew
That our friendship and caring mattered more than any of our losses.
Brian looked at me, with his bright shining brown eyes, in pure concern:
"I was worried about you," he said.  He came over to my hospital bed,
And I sat up, and we embraced.  In that moment of time, that living time,
We were both happy again, living in the moment,
Without sorrow, regret, or fear.  All our blessings were suddenly clear.
As Scripture so truly says: Perfect love casts out all fear.


==============================
Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
Written on Friday, April 15, 2011  10:38 am PST
65 degrees F.    Humidity: 13%  Forecast:  overcast
Copyright 2011 (C) by Michael LP.  All rights reserved

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Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) Greek philosopher.

PoetWithCancer’s Poems (224)

Title Comments
Title Comments
Happy Winter Solstice 1
Seasonal Ring 1
My Thanksgiving 0
God's Word 1
Under the Date Tree 1
A Few More Times 1
Divine and Diabolical World 0
Summer-Brief 2
Seasonal Ring 0
Shakespeare's Birthday and Death 0
Special Brian 0
I Remember Brian 0
Light of Life 0
Pain Has Defeated Me Today 1
The Old, Old Words 0
Home Is Where the Heart Is 0
A Sad Contemplative Christmas Today 0
Moments of Memory; In Memory of Moments 0
Sun and Rain, Joy and Pain: I Miss My Friend Brian 0
Dehumanized and Clinicized--N
OT
1
Not Full 0
Love, Loss, and Lennon 0
Dying Dream 0
Brian's Pure Love for His Lady 0
Two Loved Ladies Undergoing Surgery Now 0
The Masks Fall Off at Midnight 1
Prime of Life 1
Low Energy and Less Time: And Too Many Things to Do 1
Happy Veterans Day, Brian 0
Happy Veterans Day, Brian 0
Thanksgiving 0
Autumn of Year; Autumn of Life 0
Brian's Birthday and New Year's Eve 0
Under a Constant Star (9/11) 0
Deep Time 0
Is There Anything Out There 2
Classics in the Closet 0
Nobody 0
Feeling the Wind 0
The Wild Doe and the Hunter 0
Happy Birthday, Brian 0
The End of the World: Saturday, May 21, 2011, 6 pm PDT 1
Brian's Special Smile 0
Broken Birth 0
Missing Brian 0
Focus: Today, Happy 0
I Love You, Brian 0
The Ways and the Words of You 1
Stone Cry 0
Amore Immortale 0
Reality and Unreality 1
Lyrical Life 1
Easter 0
Shakespeare's Birthday 0
Friends During Need 1
Death--A Play--or the Final Act 0
Moods 0
I Was Worried About You 0
Song of Life 2
Me 1
Oh Mother of My Life, My Mind, My Heart--Happy Birthday (Sunday, April 3, 2011) 0
Your Money or Your Life 1
Poesis 0
A Last Look at the Moon 0
Tears for Brian: My Tears Spring Suddenly 0
Seventeen in the Past 1
Clusters 1
Suffering and Dying Where Love Is Least 1
Looking at People in a Restaurant, Talking to Brian 1
Brian Cannot Come Back to Me 3
Seven for Heaven: Human Haiku/Senryu, On Two Straight Guys Who Loved Each Other 3
Five Human Haiku (Senryu): Faithful to the Perfect Form 0
The Scream 3
Life Is 8
Following My Friend 3
Small Moments (Written by Patricia, for Brian) 1
For Precious Michael (Written by Patricia, for me) 4
Dream of Life, Dream of Friendship, Dream of Love 4
The Power to Create 4
A Single Fortune Cookie 6
The Meaning of Life 2
Dreamless 3
Prayers 3
Lost Love 2
I Thank My Mother for My Birthday and for Her Wonderful Mother Love 3
Lennon Lost His Life: And Now, So Has Teena Marie 2
All the Way with Part Way 2
Loving, Living, and Dying 6
Dreaming and Seeming 3
Poem Prayer 2
Science, Poetry, Philosophy, and More 2
Super A, Abuelita1--Th
ank You for Your Support, Caring Love, and Understanding
2
Wonderful Connie 1
Someday-Dying 2
Between Yes and No 3
Love of Life 1
Zappa the Magnificent 1
In the Midst of Life 2
Only One Death 1
Real Illusion 1
The Unknown 1
My Apparently Known Possible Fates in This World 1
No More Me 2
Someone 2
Leaving Life 1
Precious Jade 2
Fear and Grief and Going: Unguilty of the Grave 1
Using and Losing Time 1
Loveless Life 2
Good Life, Good Grief 1
Dreamless 1
Ontology versus Oncology 1
Now Time 2
No Present, No Future: All Past 3
Hippocratic Hell 1
First Light 2
Almost At the Limit [--A Sonnet] 1
Death-Trap 0
Broken 1
Birthday Termination 1
Moments 1
First and Last Cry 1
Love 2
Final Fragility 1
End of the World 1
Tripping 1
Seasonal Ring 1
Gifts that Go and Still Stay 1
Sidney Says: Advice to Poets and All Writers 3
Enthusiasm: God Within 3
Send Me Your Good Will, or Pray For Me--Please 1
Feeling Each Other's Pain 1
Snow Man for a Low Man 0
Explanation of My Poem "As If the Last" 2
New Year, No Love 2
Poetic Form 0
Guilty Pleasures: Not Guilty 2
About Me 1
Live, Laugh, and Love 4
Nothing Special 2
Why a Writer Writes 2
To Sarah Y and Her Beloved Little Boy Who Cries Out: Again! 1
I and You: Unique and the Same 1
Where's the Compasssion in Our Health Care System? 0
Lonely Girl, I'm Feeling the Way You're Feeling: But We Can Both Make It Through 3
Health-Care Reform and Hell on Earth 3
Psyche 3
My Bucket List (For Now) 4
My Most SCARED Moments 2
Children of the Stars 2
Passing Life's Test 1
Why More Now? 1
Remembering My Grandma on Thanksgiving Eve 3
Another Thursday, Another Hammer 4
Thursday's Hammer 1
New Birthday 2
Let Love of Life Light Up the Psyche of Fawn 1
To Angel Eyes: The Wonders of Your Life 1
Regarding the Lack of Fall in Texas 2
Light for the Fight 2
All That I Have 3
Shine 2
As If the Last 2
Here Now 1
All in Time 2
The Exile 2
Incurable and Terminal 4
Tripping 2
One More Tomorrow 1
My Dash 4
One of Two Is Stronger 1
No More Romeo; No More Juliet 1
Friendship and Life 1
Snow and Life 3
Live Spelled Backwards 1
Sarah Y 2
To Fly 2
My Cry 1
Moment of Madness 2
Fall From a Great Height 1
A Memory 1
Less Life; No Loving 2
A Loser, True 2
Time Stop 1
Final Sleep 1
Entre Enfer 1
Flying Life 1
One Would Have Been Enough to Make Life Worth Living 5
Once 3
The Haiku Form 2
Bridge to a Comet--Your Visits and Comments to Me 4
Get Well Soon, Luna Marie 2
Winging It (a human haiku, or senryu) 3
Light Locomotive 2
Skite, Where Were You Today? Where Are You Tonight? 2
Angel's Wings, Angel's Voice 4
Shy, but Not Too Shy 2
High Coo 4
From Night to Night 3
Life's Journey's End--Cut Short by Cancer 4
Love, Light, Life, and Night 2
Fear and Courage 1
Death in Life 3
Unknown Final Fate 3
To Right a Poem 4
Crab-Like Concealed 4
Soon 2
All in the Mind 3
Ebony Shine 3
On My Nephew Naming His First-Born Son After Me 5
Love, Loss, and Lennon 3
Eqinox 4
Feeling My Heart 5
The Best Person I Ever Knew: My Best Friend--Brian 2
In Memoriam, George Difficult 3
Lovers 7
Art 5
Things to Do 4
Plane on Fire 3
Ameliorator 5
Thanksgiving 7
Worlds of Light 24
Failure's Fortress 13
Song of Life (Original Version) 13