My mother then vs now

My mother

A woman once filled with pure laughter and joy, 

A smile that lit the room when she entered. 

My mother has the heart of gold you see. 

She always had an ear to lend with perfect advice to follow,

The perfect shoulder to cry on, 

While she held your hand and told you everything would be ok. 

But my mothers world broke when we lost my dad. 

The smiles were farther and fewer in between, 

The laughter we used to hear was now just anger filled jokes.

My mothers open ears seemed to close, 

She wasn’t able to take on the weight of the world anymore. 

Somedays it was like she couldn’t hear my screams for help. 

Her shoulders were too heavy, so I took on the weight for her. 

Standing by her side day in and day out. 

Dad was gone, life was different once again. 

Life through us another roadblock,

But I wasn’t going to let that stop us. 

So I stuck around, at the time not giving it a second thought, 

Yet here we are, 

9 years later and the hand that once held mine, 

Is still gripping the bottle and the pack of smokes. 

Having no idea where to go from here,

And as I sit writing this I wonder how I’m ever supposed to figure that out for her.

When I don’t know if she’ll ever be ready to face the fact that dads not coming home.

Reviews

[Carlos Lorenzo Estrada]

This is such a heartbreaking piece. I'm reminded of my father's mother who would rise every morning at 5 am sit at the kitchen table smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee. It was like some kind of church ceremony. When I asked one of my aunts why my grandmother did that she said it was because she was waiting for my dead grandfather to come back. She would always get up early making him breakfast and coffee before leaving to work. I found that so sad that years after his death she continued to do that.

[Emily]

So beautifully sad, my dad died doing the same job he had done his whole life. One day there was just a tragic accident and he didn't come home. Tragedy hit our home pretty hard that day and even years later we still haven't and probably won't ever recover fully. For years my mom sat in my dads chair at three pm waiting for him to walk through the door. It was devastating but there love was pure and not what you see in most marriages now. Its probably why shes still so broken, they were the couple that everyone said would be together forever. They fought about stupid stuff but every night we'd say our goodnights and our I love you's and they'd say how thankful they were to be best friends. So yes it is so sad but in a beautifully broken way. They truly feel as if they lost there one true love.