At the end of my mother’s life,
when ALS was ravaging her body
one limb, one function at a time,
she asked me to feed her.
She tried to make light of it
by telling me it’s my chance
to get even with her for the times
she begged me to eat: So skinny,
you looked like your grandfather
when he came out of Dachau.
 
When the disease came for her voice,
my mother asked me to help her.
She spoke in a soft staccato
I could barely hear, as though she was
scared she would choke on her words:
If you can’t get the drugs,
P-L-E-A-S-E just roll me….
 
She pointed to her bedroom window
overlooking the Hudson River,
the view she always longed for
and could finally afford
the last years of her life,
the river that had provided
the first passageway of her journey
from persecution to freedom.