An anaesthesiologist took her own life

In her letter she had blamed her supervisors

“She’ll go to hell,”said a nun, ignorant of strife

That can very easily consume life’s splendors

This old nun in her convent made me really mad

“She probably was an evil woman,” nun said,

That old nun cannot understand, the hell on earth

This poor woman had to undergo. Thorny bed

She lay upon daily, until she couldn’t take it

Speak again nun, after life losses it’s colours

When existence so bleak leaves no open options

Speak again nun, once you’ve sailed the becalmed dolours

That turns every single moment into hell.

When no other option exists for release

When every joy is insipid, life tepid

every decision a compromise of spirit

Forced by the iron hands of criminals in power

Do not judge, before you bathe in this shower

You might think, she was weak…should’ve fought and lived on,

Perhaps, but not everyone is cut from the same cloth

Each with their own weaknesses/ strengths. And she could not cope,

Judgemental hags like you take away the hope

From even the newly departed. Damned for what?

For living in a system that compromised her dignity?

For being in a world that cut her over and over with its severity?

The time for your concern over her eternal soul was when she was alive,

Your gossip over her corpse disgusts me.

I have done what she has done, more times than I choose to remember (a coward? Perhaps I am. A sinner? I am most definitely and vehemently!)

I do not condone her action, nor judge it. That’s between her and her Maker

As it was between me and mine the last time I connected those final dots in my own picture.

I was saved and then found things to live for

She was not, and for that I cannot blame her.

( The poem was inspired by a conversation I overheard between a nun and someone close to me. )