To my mother

from venus_fly_trap - Monday, July 19, 2004
accessed 1319 times

She joined as a young woman and now has spent more of her life in than out. Her husband left her. Most of her children too have left the cult. She has two small children. She bounces around the world with no place to call home and can only stay in homes for short times because people get tired of taking care of her and her kids. Her childhood was miserable and she hates her mother who is now dead. She feels she has done better than her mother. She had twelve pregnancies from six men with the last one ending in a miscarriage. She is very unhappy because most of us do not want to talk to her. She wants to die and "go home to be with Jesus."

Unwilling to look defeat in the eye
My mother turns back the pages in her book of life
Remembering a time when her mother looks as she does now
Old woman afraid of the mirror
“I have become her” she says
Seeing the face she loves to hate
Laughs as she says “this old body”
Laughs as she says “I want to die”
Laughs as she says “it won’t be long now”
Kicking sand on the shores of time
Building sandcastles to bide her time
Playing house she imagines each sandcastle is her home
She builds them high to welcome the One who has lead her life
Waiting for the wave that will pull her out
The wave that will relieve the ache of this life
Her own private quickening
Waiting for her under tow
Waiting for her old lungs and heart to stop
Waiting to be in that Place where all good folks go
Living life waiting for the welcome relief
Of the One who has lead her life
Still feeling left behind as others disappear
Unwilling to embrace a broken heart
Broken by the One who took her life
She hides behind her wrinkles
Old woman looks in the mirror
Laughs as she thinks about her crown of life
Laughs as she thinks proudly of this body she laid down for men
Knowing the child who forsook all to fish with Him
Is almost gone
She holds strong claiming promises promised
The child unwilling to accept these waves are simply the sea
She knows the sandcastles will be gone someday
Washed away by the One
Who will accept her humble sacrifice
Still old woman afraid



“I’ve gone through the dark glass
The wave has pulled me out into the ocean
Now on the other side face to face
I see I am known to myself alone
I gather my shattered pieces
And rise
Hitting plateau after plateau
Disintegrating
I’ve fallen off the edge of aging
And just so you know
It’s simply a steady black below.”