Five Minutes

The Smallest Measure of Forever

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End-of-life therapy is my specialist field. I’ve spent a great deal of time walking people to the edge. Helping them, and those they love, find words, comfort, and meaning as time runs thin. But no amount of training softens what it feels like when it’s your people.

I’ve lost grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. My parents. My brother, Mathew, at thirty-six. The older I get, the faster the losses come, and lately I find myself asking, who’s next? I’ve got siblings close in age, a lump in my breast I’m waiting on being investigated, friends facing their own battles. None of us knows how much time we have left, or how much time we have with the people we love.

That’s the thing about time. It slips away before you notice it’s gone. It’s like suddenly feeling someone behind you, that familiar spark of joy rising as you turn to see who it is, only to find no one there. That hollow second when the air falls still, when your body remembers what your mind hasn’t yet caught up to.

And if someone could hand you a magic wand and say, you can have five more minutes with the person who’s gone, whether you knew they were dying or never saw it coming, what would you do with them?

Poetry has always been my own therapy, the place I go when words in conversation aren’t enough. It’s these thoughts that inspired me to write the following poem.

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Five Minutes

Five minutes.
That’s all I want.
The clock won’t stop.
My hands can’t hold it still.

Time’s a bastard.
Grinning as it takes what it wants
and leaves the room quiet.

We act like we’ve got forever,
but forever’s a fragile word.
What we really get are moments,
and I want mine back.

Mum, Esmeralda.
You laugh. I laugh. We all laugh.
The fog lifts.
Your eyes shine.
For a heartbeat, I’ve got you back.
Then you’re gone.
Five minutes.
That’s all.

Mathew, that big fucking smile.
God, it fills the room.
You’re alive again,
and I’m laughing too loud
because I know how this ends.
Five minutes.
That’s all.

Dad, the guitar hums low.
Your thumb hits the string just right,
and I’m six again,
knees on the carpet,
believing music could fix anything.
You look up.
You don’t say a word.
You don’t have to.

Five fucking minutes.
That’s all I’m asking.

Five minutes to breathe you in,
to stop time shaking itself loose,
to hold one more ordinary miracle.

“Five minutes. Nothing. Everything.”

Time is stingy,
but those minutes
are gold.
They are blood.
They are love
trying not to fade.

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Esmeralda

For anyone wondering about Esmeralda - that was my mum’s party piece. She’d take out her false teeth, hunch her back like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, drag one leg behind her, and croak “Esmeralda” over her shoulder. She did it when we were kids, she did it when we were grown, and she still did it in the nursing home. It made us smile, laugh, and light up a small part of the day. That was my mum.

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What would you do with your five minutes?

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