The Last Honest Hours

 “The Last Honest Hours”

(a poem about dying of old age)

They say it’s a gentle way to go—
to slip out slowly,
with the years tucked around you like a blanket.
But no one tells you
how loud the silence becomes
when your body quits before your mind.

How your thoughts start pacing
like ghosts
through all the doors you never opened.

Did I waste my life?
Did I miss the point?
Was I too proud to say what mattered
while there was still time?

I think of the people
I loved from a distance
because I didn’t know how to be close.
The words I swallowed
because I was afraid to be wrong.
The time I traded
for things that broke
or never loved me back.

What does it all mean
when the mirror stops recognizing you,
when the memories come faster than your breath?
I see them—
my children’s faces when they were small,
the morning light on the kitchen floor,
the hand I should’ve held tighter.
It all comes rushing back
like a tide I can’t stop.

Why didn’t I sit longer
in the moments that begged me to stay?
Why did I care so much
about being right,
about being respected,
about being remembered—
and so little
about just being kind?

I wonder if the people I hurt
still carry the weight I gave them.
I wonder if the ones I lost
knew how much I loved them
before they left.
I wonder if I’ll be forgiven
for the things I can’t go back and fix.

These are the last honest hours—
when nothing shines but truth,
and even your breath
starts to feel borrowed.

And now,
as I lie in this bed,
closer to the end than the beginning,
I just want to know one thing:

Will the people I loved
remember my softness
more than my silence?
Will they know
I tried—
even when I failed?

And when I go…
will there be light,
or just more questions?
Will God take me gently,
and finally tell me
what all of this was for?

Because I’m ready to go.
But not without knowing
that my life
meant something
to someone
somewhere
deep.