To separate or not to separate?...That is the question.

I can't imagine what life would have been like if my parents split up as a child, but I can see by the bloodshot eyes of my childhood friends who had to choose between beds, weekends, photos, toys and memories due to such separations. My father died when I was 9, but my parents were together and very much in love. What is better, to have them die or choose to leave when they are alive? I've been asked that rhetorical question in the past. The yearning open grasp can hurt both the same. There's a saying, "The best thing a father can do for his child, is to love his child's mother". Concerns of abandonment, fear of intimacy and commitment, and doubt and mistrust are the waterfall of raindrops that sprinkle on broken families. So, this poem is dedicated to all of the parents out there, who each have different lunch boxes and sets of pajamas and play-dates and sleep-overs marked on their I-phones, but most of all have lonely nights missing the little tot who once crawled in between them under the sheets for protection from the boogie man.

I Will Mark Each Inch on the Wall

Jill Parshley ©2010

 

She’s the only one left in the “us”

Her wavy, honey locks of fluff wisp over her misty green eyes

As she rests her head on my thighs

Which are twice the size of her

She looks up at me, and I make silly faces,

like I’ve done in so many places

She giggles, “Daddy, do it again!” I can’t believe one day she’ll be ten

I don’t say this because she’s my little girl,

but she’s an angel, with a heart like a pearl

Onward and upward time will fly

But on my shoulders she’ll reach high

And I will wonder why

I was graced with this tiny miracle

How did I, one day at a time, change my life around,

and somehow undo her frown

Thank God as she grows tall,

I will be there to mark each inch on the wall

One day she will follow in my new foot steps for sure

Which no longer are stomping on the floor

And no longer running my sick soul out the door

I use to cry,

every slip was a lingering good-bye

I slept, didn’t play

I wept, far away

From the service I was meant to provide

But today, gratefully,

I live

And she forgives.

French toast with bacon on our weekend

Pray I never will stray again

We spend those days enriching our bond,

and then she goes back to her mom

“God…many nights they waited,

as I slowly faded, please-

keep me in your palm.”