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Rhymes & Reasons

Category: Arts & Entertainment / Topics: Change Popular Culture Television

Call it a Terminal Illiness

by Greg Asimakoupoulos

Posted: April 5, 2009

Heartsick about ER's last episode…

I'm just sick. I'm feeling awful.
Gone's my Thursday night routine.
I cannot digest the changes.
I need Dr. Ross or Greene.

County General in Chicago
has been home for fifteen years.
Guess it felt like I belonged there
like that Boston bar called Cheers.

ER dealt with more than illness.
There was love and war, you see.
It was true-to-life and gory.
It was shocking, yet PC.

Every race was represented.
There were gays, some handicapped.
Single-parents and the homeless
Those quite wealthy. Those who'd snapped.

ER's doctors and its nurses
had a story and a name.
Like the world in which I pastor,
they were marked by dreams and pain.

Every Thursday I made popcorn,
lit a fire, brewed some tea
and then settled back with Wendy
to catch up with family.

But that family now has vanished
and I grieving like they're dead.
There's a lump inside my stomach.
There's a pain inside my head.

It's a terminal-ish illness.
What I loved is dead and gone.
And it's left me cold and clammy.
Come next Thursday, nothing's on.



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Greg Asimakoupoulos (pronounced AWESOME-uh-COPE-uh-less) is an ordained minister, published author and chaplain to a retirement community in the Pacfic Northwest. Greg maintains a blog called Rhymes and Reasons, which he graciously provides to SeniorLifestyle.

Greg's writings have now been assembled in book form. See the SeniorLifestyle Store.

E-mail the author (moc.loa@veRemosewA*) Author's website (personal or primary**)

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Posted: April 5, 2009   Accessed 155 times

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