Here Comes Treble: Two "D's''
...In times when divorce is easy and frequent, death can create uncanny situations, dredging up long-buried emotions and memories.
Recently, my previous husband died. He adopted my daughter and was the father of my son...
Isabel Bradley expresses her reactions to a strange, strange day.
My Children’s Father
He died recently,
Father of my children…
Left them grieving, hurting.
Their pain is mine,
Their tears too –
So hard to shed;
There’s nothing I can do:
Comfort, somehow,
Doesn’t come from me this time...
* *
Nine years ago, after nineteen years of good times and bad, I left him. As well as leaving a marriage which wasn't working, I found I’d walked away from friendships, from people who had been important in my life. Thank goodness, my new life is happy – as was his. We didn’t communicate.
For my children’s sake, I attended the
Memorial Service
There were the friends I once knew,
Loving, kind and caring,
As if nothing ever happened
To change everything.
Are they true friends?
Were they ever?
Enough to bring on tears, isn’t it?
The minister droned on,
Like a bee in a sunlit window;
And memories poured through my soul
Like stings and honey –
Pain and anger,
Resentment, loss,
Laughter and love and joy and birth…
Rejection…
Tangled together until the tears fell.
“I hold the good times in my heart…”
* *
After the service, I went to the house, invited by my step-children (so good to be with them again), my own children, and by his widow.
Strange, Strange Day
I’m in a time-warp, I swear:
Parking under ‘my’ tree,
Walking up ‘my’ path,
Entering ‘my’ front door…
Mine no longer –
I turned my back on all it held,
Nine years ago, that was…
It’s all the same, still –
And yet, so different.
Are those my tapestries on the walls?
I stitched them years ago, with love.
New carpets, new furniture, new curtains –
And yet, there are drinking glasses, still, above the sink,
And the plates we’re eating from – I chose them…
The people in these rooms
Who laugh and talk and eat and drink –
Were friends – once.
I’m hostess here no longer -
There’s his new wife –
no, his widow, now.
His other ex is here somewhere –
Does she feel as strange as I?
Ghosts of times past, bad and good,
Wander through my mind –
Amble through strangely-familiar spaces…
Surreal doesn’t begin to name
This strange, strange day.
In this world where yesterday’s relationships collide with today’s happiness, many people surely find themselves in just such bizarre and emotionally tangled situations.
Until next week, “here comes Treble!”
By Isabel Bradley
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