New Episode - Death and my poem, Mom Unfinished

I just published my latest podcast episode. In it, I tell a little about my background in working with death, dying, and grief. I recite a poem I just wrote, Mom, Unfinished.

You can listen to all the WorldwideStew podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. Here’s a direct link to the most recent episode.

I hope you like it!

Hi, it’s Mike. It’s good to see you. I wrote a poem for you, and I’ll read it shortly. But I wanted to tell you briefly why I wrote it, to give you some context. I’ve spent my professional life caring for those who are sick and in many cases dying. And I’ve been at the bedsides of the sick and dying for well over 30 years. First in chaplain training, then for 12 years working in hospice, starting during the AIDS epidemic. And then for the last 19 years in cardiovascular care. There are also the personal losses that I’ve experienced on my own. So I know a lot about death, dying, and in the poem I’ll be sharing, Mom, Unfinished. I wanted to try to capture the experience of going to a death at a patient’s home when I was working in hospice. During those days, I was on call every six weeks, 24-7. Some nights were completely exhausting. But as I hope you’ll see, they did have moments of unforgettable reward. Hi, I’m Mike Davis, and this is Worldwide Stew.

(Introductory music)

So how can I describe my experience of caring for dying people and their families after all these years? I can’t distill it into one word. It’s impossible. It’s like a non-stick skillet. Death resists almost every attempt at definition and categorization. One thing I can say is true of all the deaths I ever attended. Every death I ever witnessed was unique. No death felt like any other. They may have shared symptoms, backgrounds, experiences, and values, but there was never one death identical to another. Every death felt, also, like it took something from me. But every death, every single one of them, a couple of thousand of them at least, also gave me something back. As I said in this poem, Mom Unfinished, I wanted to capture what it was like to be called to a death. I wanted to highlight the human drama and the charm and life review that we all do in these moments. And to be clear, you couldn’t recognize anyone in this poem because names and details fit some aspect of every death I’ve ever attended, even those of family. Like quantum physics describes everything and nothing, this poem describes everyone and no one.

Still, there was something very special about those days. Whatever I gave, and it was a lot, I found untold volumes of goodness in death’s passing light. And now, without further ado,

Mom Unfinished

by Michael Davis

Had they told me about the hours of sleep I would miss, awakened in the night,
To sit in the crumpled recliner,
Presiding at the departure of Mom. She sat here only a week ago, Sat where I now sit.
From here, Mom rendered judgments,
Pronouncements, and gave due consideration
To things as they were.
To the grandchildren taking trips,
Getting better than passing grades,
And bringing home boyfriends to meet the family.
Is it serious?, she asked?
Mom is here again.
Stories of foods, special occasions,
Church potlucks, and the doctor that she loved.
Rita takes a call. Her brother, Aaron, is on his way.
Flying in from San Diego later tonight.
Listening now to stories about her life.
Rita, her long-suffering daughter, keeps talking,
Alternately crying and occasionally laughing.
Her voice lowers. She leans forward.
Confessing her flashes of anger with her mother. Over demands for things to be fixed right now.
Or accidents, spills, and other increasingly
Frequent indicators that Mom’s body was failing her.
Notifications of the Doppler shift,
Those gathering sounds of a train
Passing the station so quickly
That its arrival and departure seem to have
Come and gone with only its shrill
And parting whistle to signal
The end of the event.
That and the ever-lessening glow of
The light at the end of the caboose.
And now, sitting in her worn recliner,
The talking has all stopped.
We are quiet. Words are mere patter.
They are the caulk of sadness,
Filling spaces where words usually go.

The front door opens.
It’s her other sister, Diane. She’s more the business
Person, the one who asks the questions
About what happened. Did you call the hospice
Nurse yet? The funeral home? Does Father
Hernandez know? She’s not a
Jerk. This is how she arranges her life. Her husband
Stays out of the way. Rita,
Who bathed and fed mom, has flashes of
Annoyance on her face at all the questions. There will be
Many discussions in the future,
As there have been in the past,
Over Mom and Dad, (now long past),
Rita and Aaron and Diane,
Making sense of who, what, why and when,
As though any of that can be truly known.

There on the door jamb, next to the refrigerator,
Are the marks of three children, growing taller,
Now ancient pictographs, resembling the
Place-in-time of three children,
None of whom exist as they did then.
When Aaron gets here, later tonight, Unseen, he will go and stand next to
The door jamb.
Where are you, Mom, to pencil-mark my height now?

I amble slowly to the car,
Fresh air, renewing my lungs.
Exhausted, but not by lost sleep,
This weariness comes from
The compacted rituals,
Visiting the change of human forms.
These words, these movements, Gentle fingers on mom’s forehead, treasuring her. Her soft skin,
In turn, treasuring me.
All of these,
In their own way,
Trying to caulk the empty spaces of human sadness.

Thanks so much for listening. I hope that this feels supportive and caring for you, in your own experience of grief and loss, in your own connections with the dying process. I certainly hope that my intention of caring for you came through. Thanks for listening.

©. 2026. Michael Davis and WorldwideStew.com