So You Want to Understand?

"It's been a year,
When will your grieving end?"
"Why can't you be like you once were,
my smiling happy friend?"

If you really want an answer,
though, I wonder if you do,
I'll take you deep inside me,
where sadness dims the view.

First, my "friend," for your sake,
come close and take my hand.
And we will pray that what I share,
you won't have to understand.

The me you once knew is no more,
It died with my child.
A voice was stilled forever,
yet the echo drives me wild.

You say you lost Aunt Bertha,
so you have known death too.
Aunt Bertha, however, was not your child,
and she was eighty, not twenty-two.

I barely survived those first months,
coping was a dreadful task,
I'd tell you I was fine,
while sobbing behind my mask.

If I talked about my precious child,
you turned away in fear.
You couldn't stand to see me cry,
nor would you share my tears.

I wanted to speak of her, please,
won't you say her name?
But you pretend she never was,
so she died over and over again.

Oh, I see that you're uncomfortable,
you no longer want my hand,
so as it was before we talked, my "friend,"
you don't want to understand!

~Author Unknown

To email me, go to Barbara's Basement