Cancer Patient Writes Farewell Poem for Kids
Cindy Finch was in cancer’s crosshairs. With tubes and tanks surrounding her she needed to find a way to console her children in the likelihood she didn’t beat the illness. “I pulled out my ace,” she said. “A poem born from a day of raw courage and the reality of borrowed time. As I read it to my family, the room turned into a capsule of eternity, with me the astronaut and them, my ground control.”
Nobody would ever forget this day.
“On That Shore – my heart inked on paper. A lullaby for the soul for the time when lullabies would be what they needed to remember my voice by.”
If I should go and skies turn gray and life swings long and low,
If clouds should burst and hearts should break and between us, time should grow.
Then know that I’ve but morphed a bit and flown on up ahead,
To wait upon the shores of God on this path that I’ve been led.
I’ll sing, I’ll dance, I’ll play all day and the stories I will hear,
From those who’ve gone before me and from those who now are near.
Rumors and longings from this secret place have billowed through my mind,
Years I’ve longed to see my home, and now, at last, it’s time.
Time for songs, time for joy, time for walks and talks,
Time to know, as I’ve been known as mysteries are unlocked.
My heart will bloom, His glory full, my Lover now revealed!
My feet upon His grass and my cartwheels in His fields.
My hero and I will laugh and sing, His nobles I will greet,
They’ve butterflied away like I, now His grass beneath their feet.
Long and sweet I’ll drink it in, this new life from my old,
But know each day the shores I’ll walk as I’ve grown now young from old.
Know that I am waiting and longing for that time
When your steps will meet my shore again
And your hand joins back in mine.
I’ll leap, I’ll run, I’ll chase you down,
I’ll kiss you high and low!
I’ll tuck, I’ll hug, I’ll sweep you up. There upon that shore.
Your nose and ears I’ll bite and chew as if they were a cake!
My Heaven will expand then, when you, upon that shore I take.
When dance and laughs and sweet relief’s give full sail to this “Us”
We’ll talk, we’ll tell of our sweet paths that Heaven’s brought us to discuss.
I’ll tell of times when from His lap, your face, your life I poured
The fragrant wine of our dear love and my longings from that shore.
My Captain how He’d silk my hair and gently touch my face
His hands, his love will silk you too, as we wait for our embrace.
So dawn with me, step high and light when life pulls hard and mean
I’ve butterflied, the days will fly, til I greet you on that beach.
My kiss, my hugs will wait for you and then still all the more,
When in that time, my God and I will meet you on that shore.
Thank you to Cindy Finch. Cindy is a clinical therapist, author, and speaker (info@CindyFinch.com). She trained at Mayo Clinic and works closely with those in the margins. She wrote this poem while in the midst of her cancer treatment. Cindy has overcome her cancer and is healthy today.