Our whole life
Separated into
Segments of time
Like chapters in a book
Is like a rehearsal for what is to come.
Beginnings and endings.
As a child
I was always afraid of losing you.
And when I did
And that chapter of your life came to an end
I felt that separation, painful and permanent.
The second time I had become taken from you.
The first time
When I was born
And I no longer lived inside your body
And was trying to learn how to live outside of it.
Then when you died
The terrible ache of having you torn away from me.
I was no longer connected to you in life.
And my child,
Who danced for you in your final days
Suddenly began a new chapter in her life,
A quiet place
Away from your watchful gaze
No longer dancing for you
But behind the closed doors of her room
Shutting me out.
Suddenly as if over night
She shed her childhood
The way you shed your physical essence
And
I felt as if I had lost you both,
You my mother,
And the child that laughed and danced with ease.
By J. Hamilton