To the father...

A Letter to the Father
of My Children
About the Death of Me


I keep myself alive
because I'm afraid
you'll tell Jeremy
that it's just as well -
that his mommy's crazy,
that he's better off without me.

He would be a baby in grief,
and since you don't even begin
to understand or accept your own -
much less mine, you wouldn't be able
to help him come through
my death intact, and healthy.

So I write, hoping that somehow,
someone will understand
what it's been like, alone.

I know my son
would need someone special
to love and support him
in his time of grief
if I should die.
He would need to be told
over and over again
that I didn't stop loving him by dying,
but that I had
a sickness called "Grief".
He would need to be told
over and over again that it wasn't his fault.
It's so hard to keep up
with his emotional band-aids,
much less his physical ones.
Specially when I need
the biggest band-aid of all.
But more than that -
I need someone
to put it on me, to take care of me,
for a change.

I resent not being able
to stop the pain because
you'd be a lousy parent for Jeremy -
thrilled because I was finally out of your hair.
.