What Happened That Day

What happened that day
Makes me ashamed
In the dead of night
A call came in.

What happened was
The lights went on
I woke up
And my mother came to me.

My dad was on the phone
My sisters still asleep
Twelve forty five
And I fell down crying.

My tired eyes couldn’t close
My parents left
And I felt all alone.

I laid in bed
With my head on the pillow
I was crying.

One o’clock, two o’clock
Three o’clock went past
Almost asleep
I turned my TV off.

Suddenly another call
I said “hello”
My aunt answered
I was wide awake.

I put down the phone
Walked into my room
And fell back into bed.

I laid in bed
With my head on the pillow
I was crying.

Six o’clock came
My movie was over
I took a shower
And sat in a chair.

I turned the TV on
The Muskegon news
Yet it didn’t show
What I wanted to see.

I fell asleep
Eight o’clock came
My parents came home
And put me to bed.
At one o’clock
I woke up
Went into the kitchen
And got something to eat.

We jumped in the car
And came to Whitehall
We stayed at a friend’s
And I slept all night.

Five days had passed
At the Sorenson’s house
I got all dressed up
And jumped in the car.

A big lady stood up
As intimidating as she was
She started crying
And I cried with her.

A stoned lady stood
In front of the room
“You say you know me
But I don’t know you.”

She kept saying those lines
Over and over
I tried not to laugh
But I couldn’t help it.

My uncle was dead
And I never knew
How much he meant to me
Until he was gone.

~This poem was written within a year of the death of my Uncle, Edward Hanes. He died July 24th, 2002 on his motorcycle, getting onto US 31 in Muskegon. We hadn't seen him in over 2 years.

Randa Lee Hanes
Written in 2003

Copyright ©2009 Randa Lee Hanes