Please critique -- ruthlessly or gently which ever way you feel is best.I just want to learn.I am sorry that it is sad but this is the way I manage my emotions.


WISHES FOR A FATHER

Tonight I sit here at my desk
Strange emotions washing over me
Am I sad, am I lonesome
What can I say about this moment?

I miss my family even though they are near
Their lives have taken new paths
All of them leading away from me
Isn’t this just as it should be?

I’m pleased they spend so much time
With families who are their own
But time moves on for Dad and me
Moving closer to our end.

If I could wish, I would wish wishes come true
And my family would all love
Love one another and us, too.
Warmth and tenderness would be ours.

But life rushes forward
Sweeping all of us with it
There is no stopping for them
Their lives are so busy and full.

Our lives are busy, too, with all our busyness
Writing, gardening, painting, reading, hiking, friends
All are hollow and meaningless
Compared to what we remember when.

When children were small
And needed cuddles and kisses
Chubby arms around our necks
Bitter tears when left behind with a sitter.

Sunday we listened as our youngest
Told a story in church of a nineteen year old
Dead a few days before his birth date
Gone now, leaving broken hearted parents to grieve.

They don’t know a parent’s heart can weep
Every day of their lives
Grieving for love that doesn’t come from children
Not dead but too busy right now.

Father’s Day is coming again this year
The son who closed his heart to us
In his fifteenth year
Breaks our hearts every year he is too busy.

First this, then that is important
Sometimes we don’t even hear
We wait and I grieve for the father
Suffering quietly, silently year after year.

Oh, yes, death is final and heart breaking
But living without a son’s love
Is a grief which wounds the heart beyond repair
Grieve for your dead, while our hearts bleed on for the living.