The Most Important Conversation
Today’s poem came to me as an image. One of a mother standing next to a coffin that has her daughter’s body inside. The mother is weighed down by the grief of losing her daughter, a beautiful young lady. The mother’s soul is crying out in anguish because, in that moment, she realizes she taught her daughter all the wrong things about love. It gets harder and harder for her to stand up straight because she’s weighed down by the knowledge that it’s too late; her Angel is gone and she’s not coming back. So, their souls have this one last conversation, the one they should have had while the daughter was alive.
I offered my once Angel
some words of remorse today.
My silent plea: please forgive me.
After twenty-six years of suffering,
she couldn’t look at me anymore.
She wasn’t able to look into my eyes
and see how I’m suffering
now that I can’t look into her eyes and see
the whole of the world unfolding.
I should have seen the need for an apology
before today. Because when I finally
apologized today, I knew
my apology had come much too late.
Is he here mommy?
Can you tell him, for me,
that I still love him?
That I’m still willing
to fight for our love.
Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.
Sorry I never told you
that the one who truly loves you
won’t ever want to hurt you.
He’ll be drawn to you
and the special light you
emanate.
A light he never wants to dim.
But mommy, he said he loves me.
Sometimes I just make him angry.
Be careful, my Angel, of the ones who
want to dim your inner light
because, for them, you shine too bright.
Every light we see does not illuminate
the path we should take. Sometimes
lust and loneliness pull us onto a path,
one covered with brambles and branches
of a false love and we get tangled all up, trying
to hold on to so many different types of love.
Loves that, in the end, never really were.
Oh mommy, I’m so sorry.
I never wanted to make you cry.
Don’t cry mommy. He said he loves me.
And I believe him.
I should’ve taught you how to protect your love,
to secure your love like you do all valuables.
To keep it locked away where it could be protected
until you found the one who was worth accepting it.
I should’ve told you that just because someone desires you,
doesn’t mean they value you. And you’d never try to spend
counterfeit money so why’d I teach you
to accept counterfeit love?
He said he loves me, mommy.
I’m sorry I never told you
that sometimes it’s better to walk away,
to just let go and walk away.
If you’re walking down the street
and something catches your eye, you stop.
But you don’t have to stay, especially when you see
it never really was what you thought it could be.
Why did I allow you to believe
that finding an old Canadian coin covered in dirt
could produce riches for you? Why didn’t I teach you
that giving away your love should’ve been easy
and would have been easy with the person who chose to
fall in love with your soul?
Oh mommy, why’d I have to die
to finally know he never loved me?
And why did I never warn you baby
about the kind of love that kills,
the love that destroys you because you
aren’t what they need, you’re just what they want?
Peace & Love,
Rosalind
