Requiem

Lizis Rodriguez, MS2

And there you are standing in front of him

A man whose face you’ve seen age and wrinkle with time

Holding a gaze you wish you could forget

A man that is one breath away from crossing the line into nothingness.

You try to hold on to all the memories in a slip of a second,

as if they weren’t yours, to begin with.

That man was the sole bearer of those memories,

and you knew you were losing them both.

The more you pressed on his chest,

the more tears came down your face.

Sorrow became an invader of your thoughts and reality was more eminent

than any string of hope you were holding on to.

The hazelnut of his iris was now a deep black

that possessed his whole body into a standstill state of emptiness.

The look of barrenness of a dead man.

A man who held you when you were born and now you hold him.

How can you ever exit the never-ending stages of grief?

Undulating forwards and back,

as waves of an ocean that come and go

until they forcefully crash into the shore,

and all chaos breaks loose under that water

Time will never mend how my heart washed away with you that day.

I kept all our memories as you left them to me

and didn’t take any of them with you.

As I have been your secret keeper,

to one day share them with my children,

for you will be known even to those who never met you.

About the Author:

I was born in Cuba and immigrated to the United States when I was only 5 years old due to my parents’ persistence of leaving our country of birth to have a better future for their first-born child. Thanks to their hard work, I have been able to live a life of many freedoms including being able to choose my own career path, for which I chose to become a doctor. Practicing medicine has been my passion for a very long time and I am grateful to have the opportunity to attend FIU’s Herbert Wertheim’s College of Medicine where I am currently a second-year medical student. I live a very blessed life in which I share a home with my parents, my younger brother, and my grandmother. This is something that gives me the opportunity to see them every day and spend quality time with them as much as possible. Although most of my time is spent studying, I enjoy the outdoors, exercising, cooking, and watching movies. It is a goal of mine to have my own family and continue to share with them the memories, culture, and the happiness that I have gained throughout my life.

About the Work:

This poem's intent is to express cathartic emotions of someone who is grieving the loss of a family member. Writing this poem was a form of liberation.