TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith and this is The Slowdown. 

I’m willing to bet that no one on their death bed says, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” No one, taking stock of their life in those final days and moments, is thinking about spreadsheets or profits or ROI - Return on Investment. I can imagine what I’ll be thinking about at the end of my life: my beloveds, and the beauty of this place I’ve called home, and the memories I treasure most. 

When my maternal grandmother was dying, I was a first-year MFA student. I would visit her in the memory care wing of the nursing home where she lived. Even though she didn’t know who I was, we would sit together and talk. She wanted to be outside as much as possible. She was rarely hungry but loved the ice cream bars that one of her nurses would bring her. It was fall, brisk outside, and I remember her sitting in a chair on her patio, bundled in an electric blanket. I took a Polaroid of her in that chair, with various members of our family gathered around her. 

I hope, when it’s my time, that I’m holding the hand of someone I love. I hope I’m not in a hospital room or a nursing home, but outside, breathing fresh air, maybe looking at clouds or trees or water. I hope there is music, or singing, or the sound of birds or waves, or all of the above. I hope I can feel gratitude for my time on this planet, even though I must go. 

I have to admit that writing that last paragraph made me cry. It’s enough to make my eyes fill with tears—just thinking about having a finite number of days, and not being able to stay, when staying with the people I love is what I want more than anything. We only get to be with one another for a limited time. “Life is short,” my poem “Good Bones” begins. Some days I feel that heart-wrenching brevity so acutely.

Today’s poem grabbed me the first time I read it, a few years ago, and it made me an instant fan of the English poet Caroline Bird. Imagining the end of her life, this poem’s speaker has a refreshing take on what I might call emotional ROI: the enormous return on investment when it comes to love. 

Checkout
by Caroline Bird

I think ‘so, this is death’ and wonder why
I can still see through my eyes. An angel
approaches with a feedback form asking
how I’d rate my life (very good, good,
average, bad, very bad) and I intend to tick
‘average’ followed by a rant then I recall
your face like a cartoon treasure chest
glowing with gold light, tick ‘very good,’
and in the comment box below I write
‘nice job.’ The angel asks if I enjoyed
my stay and I say ‘Oh yes, I’d definitely
come again’ and he gives me a soft look
meaning ‘that won’t be possible but thanks
all the same,’ clicks his pen and vanishes.

"Checkout" by Caroline Bird. Used by permission of the poet.