Christmas Mourning

Painful growth... as I go through the past a piece at a time, I'm coming to finally release the last of my denial and see my mother's part in all of it. It's hard. She has always been the "good" parent. Yet, where was she when I needed her most?

I twisted my ankle Saturday night. When I mentioned this to my mother - a fall down the deck stairs and a sprained ankle - what do you suppose her response was?

She told me of her dinner plans with my brother.
That's it.
And the thing is, while I felt hurt, dismissed, unheard... I wasn't surprised. It was the catalyst for the grief I'm entering into.

I know - I've always known on some level - that her concern is really only with herself. Even her constant support of my father is selfish in that it is fed by her fear of abandonment.

When given a choice between my father and me, well... there's never been a choice. No matter what he was doing, she stood by as if the world was a perfect place and never said a word.

It is what she has not done that cuts the deepest, and her lack of compassion this weekend was the straw that broke the back of a camel called denial.


Christmas Mourning


The child wants
The child needs
And so the child must believe

Anticipated fancy’s flight
Pledges of a daybreak bright
Hope, a beacon in the night
That never sees the morning light

Hurt and fear and sorrow fade
Promises divert the pain
Longed-for wishes softly prayed
This time let it be okay

The child wants
The child needs
And so the child lives the dream

Words of comfort, Mother’s touch
Doesn’t really hurt so much
Her back is turned, her smile a bluff
It’s what she doesn’t do that’s rough

Keep dreaming child, suckling malaise
While mother seems to proffer grace
With offerings prepared in haste
To keep the world’s eyes from your face

The child wants
The child needs
Watch closely and you’ll see her bleed

Cold as wintry blizzard drifts
Are Christmas morning’s promised gifts
And foiled and failed family trips
Bring about another shift

Mother’s eyes are vacant holes
As empty as the child’s soul
As the fractured walls explode
What does she have; what can she hold?

The child wants
The child needs
The child is grown and she is me

The pretty ribbon’s ripped and cut
The wrapping paper's torn apart
The open box, my fissured heart
At hope's end I must learn to start

Like storefront gifts on Christmas morn
Disguised, empty, and timeworn
True concern and care, stillborn
So sad there’s nothing there to mourn