She slipped the deep blue coat from the hanger.

The fur collar brushed her cheek,

a brief vanishing softness.

I watched from my doorway,

a child awake when I shouldn’t have been,

drawn by the thin slice of light

— a path to my mother.

My father rattled his keys,

impatient for the night ahead.

But she moved at her own pace,

buttoning the coat,

one small circle at a time,

each button, a door closing between us. 

Don’t go, Mama.

When you wake up tomorrow, I’ll be here.

I didn’t know yet

that even small departures were rehearsals.

Years later,

I stood beside her bed

as her breath thinned

until it was only a thread,

a single stitch holding her to the world.

When she exhaled for the final time,

I thought of that coat—

how she slipped into it,

how she slipped out of it—

and I knew death was only this:

the gentle unfastening,

the body set down

like a garment grown too heavy,

and the spirit stepping forward

into whatever waits

beyond the door.

In that moment

I saw her again in the hallway,

unbuttoning the blue coat,

letting it slip from her shoulders

and collapse into itself —

a shape without a body.

She stepped out of the garment 

she had worn so long,

that heavy, beautiful coat

of skin and bone.

And, once again,

I was the child in the doorway,

wanting her to stay,

not knowing I was learning

to let her go. 

Don’t go, Mama.

When you wake up tomorrow, I’ll be here.