I Couldn't Have Done It Without You

Today's Poets & Storytellers United prompt is "I couldn't have done it without you."

All week I've thought about ways to write that sort of poem that can be shared with the general public. 

 When I think about writing such a poem for the more likely candidates, my late and great "Aunt Dotty" pops in my head: "S/He does not use the Internet. Don't you have some nice stationery? A medium ballpoint pen that makes a clear strong line? Calligraphy, yes, but not too many flourishes--s/he is 98 years old." 

More often no particular voice needs to tell me: "S/He is already dead."

Brands age by decades but I've been over 50 long enough to qualify for senior discounts. Most of the time I think seniority is fun. It's great to put that old hormone cycle in the garage, it's cool to think that in another five or ten years I might become a great-aunt, but one thing I hate about middle age is that around age 50 you start losing friends left and right. Not even elders. So far six women whose school years overlapped with mine have had breast cancer; the one who had it first is still alive; the others aren't. A friend of a friend had a tumor removed last week and was told the Stage IV cancer had metastasized. An e-friend seems to be going down fast. 

I'm having an empathy attack. It's not as devastating as the one when this latest war started. I try to think about poems and my mind keeps going back into prayers for this friend of a friend, whom I only met once or twice, and the people who are already starting to miss him. 

But I couldn't have done it without you,

Gentle Readers, these twelve years.

I couldn't have kept on writing this record

of the laughter and the tears

if youall hadn't kept reading, 

Gentle Readers, every post.

I couldn't have done it without you!

In the old phrase, you're the most!.