LEPER

Today, I am hurting. I miss both my children who choose not to be part of my life….stigma left-over from my seriously bad mental health days and now my physical disability. Perhaps I’ve caused them pain in my illness.

My daughter, ‘Clare’ with my two young granddaughters will honour me with her presence, if I’m lucky, for a couple of hours around Christmas time. That’s it! Once! It hurts and I so miss my grandchildren who barely know me, and then only as a stranger. I know she doesn’t love me.

My son, ‘Tom’, my first-born, has opted out of my life altogether. I have a grandchild who is 18 months old who I’ve only seen once when she was born. A duty call, that’s all. Better than nothing, I know, but now….it is completely nothing. It is as if he doesn’t exist. I don’t exist on his planet and he has no love for me either.

I wrote a poem a few years back. I chanced sending it to both of them in the hope…..the vain hope……

Nothing. Deafening silence. Silhouettes on the horizon. This was the poem I wrote:

My child, why does it have to be this way?
When I love you so much, it hurts
And I miss you to the end of the Earth and back
And would give my eye-tooth to hold you again.

My heart is a jigsaw with a piece missing
And try as I might, I cannot find it
Where are you, my child, who are you now?
You are all but lost to me. Will you be forever?

I’ll never stop hoping, wishing, praying
That one day, you’ll come back into my life
But tell me if it’s a vain hope
As I suffer every minute without you here

I love you, my precious child
You doubt me, you mistrust me
You despise me and whatever I do or don’t do
It’s not enough to bring you back to me

I would give gold and silver and diamonds and more
For the want of you to be close to me again
But I am helpless to redeem myself
Though I try long and hard and try to hold on to hope

But the hope is diminishing as the days,
The hours, the minutes, the seconds go by
We are further apart than ships in the night
And the lighthouse is disappearing from sight

I offer only a forever kind of love for a lifetime
For the years together we’ve missed
Nothing fills the void, nothing will, nothing can
For the rest of my days on this Earth, I am sorry

If I could take your pain and carry it on my back for you
I would do so, willingly, my precious child
I only wish you joy, happiness, peace of mind
You have nothing to fear from me

I am no threat, nor wish to be. Can you forgive me?
In your heart of hearts, my child, could you?
You have done no wrong in my eyes
The eyes of a mother at the death of her child.

I LOVE YOU ALWAYS xxx

 

Still…..nothing…..absence…..isolation…..stranger…..leper.

I hurt.