I looked through a four-paned window
One cold and lifeless day.
And wept for Mother-a widow
Whose life was ebbing away.
My heart hung low and saddened
As death-like and wan she lay.
Oh, could it have been gladdened
With hope—There wasn’t a ray.
Her brow was so hot with fever
Her hands so cold and numb—
I forever and ever can see her
As she waited for Death to come.
He was on his way. She knew it
And patiently waited his call.
Dear Mother, how could you do it?
His visit has ended all
You had your garments all ready,
All washed and spotless as snow.
You waited with a courage so steady
Till your time should come to go.
Mother, I was waiting with you
But little O, did I suppose
That death would call upon you—
That your life on earth would close.
Tis done! Tis done! We’ve seen it
And we’ve wept a bitter moan
For we can not now undo it
So, we are left alone.
But Mother, we see in Heaven
A brighter, glorious place,
A corner in God’s own kingdom
Made beautiful by your face.
And so these memories in glory
Shall cover those saddened hours
And shall give us a beautiful story
More than funeral and flowers.
And still, tho’ my heart is broken,
As I journey mountain and lea
I can see in Heaven a token
Of tenderness meant for me.
Beth here:
There had been a family—grandparents, a father, mother, and five children. Death had visited often. There had been the pitiful loneliness when the first child died of typhoid fever at five. Later came the traumatic separation of a father and mother when my mother was ten. That same year, came the death of the grandmother who had seemed to offer kindness and hope. Finally, because of the widowed mother’s poverty, the three younger children were all adopted to other families. Poverty and now the death of her mother that left my mother completely alone. I cannot imagine how it must have felt being a young single girl with no family.
The paper this poem was written on was so yellowed and brittle that I could scarcely hold it as I tried to read the words my mother had written about her mother. Urgency gripped my heart as I labored to hold and read the fragile pages—an urgency to get this into print before it disintegrated and disappeared.
Beth Johnson
I have no words that can adequately describe your heartfelt post. I do Thank You for the same.
Yes, you are right about the emotional reaction. Thanks for reading.
After I studied several old poems my mother had written about hard times in Texas during the Great Depression, I searched for statistical information on poverty during 1929 to 1930 and found a site about Germany’s situation. There was a general worldwide depression everywhere and Germany was no exception. It made sense to me that Hitler would covet the Jews’ possessions and determine to enlarge his own coffers by exterminating them.