The Problem

A poem about addiction and loss.

I was back for Christmas break.
Mum soon to sleep and late to wake.
In the chair by 6 some days.
Perhaps it's just the festive faze?

The sleep stayed pretty odd from there.
Noisy mumbles. Some big nightmares?
Restless legs and jumbled wakings.
Noticed that her hands are shaking.

Lots of half there, half not times.
We started to see some dark signs.
The worry is consistent now.
Does Mum have a problem? How?

Covid struck, I came back home.
A summer in the family zone
But solitude still haunted Mum.
But it's just wine, it's not rum.

The worry gnawed and bit and chewed.
For The Problem, I too was food.
Deep entrenched in fiction books.
Something had Mum by its hooks.

I worked in Cambridge; closer by.
And by this time, she kept the lie.
Mum was struggling, so we did talk.
It now consuming every thought.

A trip away, the Norfolk coast.
The sea our rough, immortal host.
But it all came to a grim head.
"Madam, please leave" the barman said.

Bare foot climbing an 8-foot gate.
She smashed herself, a drunken state.
An intervention was put forward.
The Problem moving ever northward.

Clinical help to stem the tide.
A spark of hope we kept inside.
But she came home and nothing changed.
The Problem loomed and spat and raged.

AA meetings and therapy.
An upward curve was plain to see.
"She might do it now", we all said.
The Problem could be put to bed.

Late October, I got a call.
"Your Mum's not very well at all".
"Don't come home though, she'll be just fine".
A birthday card bought just in time.

The phone rings, on a Saturday.
Her birthday coming yesterday.
"She's jaundice. Take the next plane home".
The tickets bought, still on the phone.

6 months have passed, what's done is done.
Time still marches; it bolts. It runs.
For her problem, she paid her fee.
But that's not all she was to me.