I Thought I Was Grieving You
I kept asking myself...
Why does this hurt so much?
We weren't lovers anymore.
We had already buried our forever
long before they buried you.
So why did your death
feel like it stole the air from my lungs?
Then one night...
I finally understood.
I wasn't grieving you.
I was grieving
the future
my children will never have.
Mental illness stole pieces of you
long before death came.
Some days you showed up.
Some days you disappeared.
Some promises were kept.
Most were broken.
My son never stopped believing in you.
He loved you with the kind of faith
only a child can have.
My daughter grew older.
She learned that love
and disappointment
can live in the same heart.
And me...
I stood in the middle.
Protecting them.
Protecting you.
Holding together pieces of a family
that kept falling apart.
I could have filled my children's hearts
with every reason I was angry.
Every broken promise.
Every empty chair.
Every missed phone call.
But I didn't.
Because your relationship with them
was never mine to destroy.
As long as you were alive...
Hope was alive.
Maybe next birthday.
Maybe next Christmas.
Maybe next year.
Maybe you'd finally find your way back.
Maybe they'd finally have
the father they deserved.
Then you died.
And every maybe
was buried with you.
People think I'm crying
because I wanted you back.
They're wrong.
I'm crying because my children
deserved more time.
More chances.
More memories.
More of their father.
Death didn't just take you.
It took every birthday,
every graduation,
every wedding,
every grandchild you'll never meet...
It stole every chance
my children had
to believe tomorrow
might be different.
I wasn't grieving
the man I lost.
I was grieving
the father
my children never got to keep.
ESTÁS LEYENDO
I Thought I Was Grieving You
PoesíaShe thought she was grieving the man she lost. Instead, she was grieving the father her children would never get the chance to have. A raw poem about complicated grief, motherhood, hope, and the heartbreak of every "maybe" that died too soon.
