In memory of Gertrude Wilber

Gertrude died on the first day of the Iraq War in 2003 as the bombs began to fall. She was buried beneath the plum tree in our front yard. Gertrude was a peacemaker.

Gertrude, age 83 

My wife Alix’s mom Gertrude died this morning at 10

of old age and emphysema and congestive heart failure.

Alix and her brother Chris were both with her

when she died in her own home

and it was a good and peaceful death

with the two people she loved and needed most

there with her holding her and

caring for her.

Yesterday Alix called and

I was struck by the peace in her voice

in what is doubtless

the hardest time of her life.

She had just finished giving her mom a morphine shot

and before that she had given her mom a bath

and she had spent many hours holding her hand

soothing her, talking to her.

Alix said, “I’m so glad I can be here with her.

I wouldn’t miss this for anything in the world.

This is the bargain we make,

the other end of life and birth,

and just as natural as the beginning.”

On this dark night,

as the bombs begin to fall on Baghdad,

and sorrow falls like a curtain across the world,

I think of Gertrude,

a woman who loved peace and abhorred war,

and I think of the smile that crossed her face

during moments in the last few days

when she came to consciousness and realized

that she was cradled

in the love of her children.

Wednesday, March 19, 2003