Dreams

Because I am not young,
there are many things I have lost,
some good, some bad, none indifferent,
but all losses, for no loss is indifferent.

There are things I have lost that very few know about.
I lost a baby on Christmas day,
Christmas is a day I mourn, not celebrate.
Those who do not know or want to know about my past
do not understand why Christmas should be a day,
if not of mourning, at least a day of remembering,
if only for a moment, those that are gone,
rather than celebrations, but those who do not know me,
nor want to know my past are yet another loss.

There used to be people who wanted to know my past,
and what I had done and what I could do.
Those people are no longer here, or here
but no longer interested, not enough to ask or think.
I have lost a baby, a mother, a grandmother,
my best friend, a husband, and a son.
But the greatest of these is not the baby
as most would guess I had not time to know her
how can you lose what you have never known?
The thing I mourn the most is a companion who cares
enough to read my poetry, or want to know why -
-why I hate Christmas, or why I am sad..
These are dreams that every girl dreams.

I dreamed for many years of being a medical doctor,
dreams that always included children from another country.
That dream was lost in my early twenties, a choice to make,
a family I already had or a medical degree I didn’t.
The choice to have both was taken from me like a father
takes a toy for a child whom he finds bothersome.
I finally got that Dr. before my name, but not as I wished.
I fulfilled my dream of helping underprivileged children
in other countries with a gift for languages – and it is a gift
that gave me a PhD in international communications, unrecognized as real
by those in my life who are supposed to care about me and my well being.
Some dreams come true, in ways we don’t expect, but sometimes they are tainted.

I dreamed of helping the children in foreign countries,
teaching them a better life, a richer life,
a life without pain, but that was only a half filled dream.
A part of the dream that did come to me for which
I shall forever be grateful for the memories that remind me
That I helped some less fortunate than myself.
The loss here is that the memorabilia is not
any more welcome in my house than my art.
That is a loss I am beginning to speak of,
Gaining the courage to say, and say with anger
that I have a right to my memories,and to mourn my losses.

I want to end this missive with a few dreams that did come true.
I have a wonderful daughter who is lucky to be alive,
a grandson that I think of daily, who is learning to know me.
I learned to make another best friend, for which I’m so grateful,
though it took me years to do so. The baby is still a baby gone
but I love her as if she were still here.

My art dreams will come true as it seems I have no choice. It is who I am.

© g.abbey, rewritten, December, 2011

16 I’ve Got Dreams to Remember