Saturday, June 25, 2011

Painful Pasts

When our parents are too soon taken,
We're not able to walk away,
Deciding which of their values should go
And which values we wish would stay.

We forget what they were really like
In both their goodness and their bad.
We begin to imagine they had lives
That our parents never really had.

This process works well for some,
Until they encounter others
Who had their own experiences
With our fathers and our mothers.

Suddenly we are squarely faced
With feelings long thought dead.
Encounters with people we love,
We may then begin to dread.

How are we to mend the wounds
When they are carried on in family?
Will we ever, from our painful pasts,
Ever really be set free?