Look at both of you.
Smiling as if you had attended any other of my events
Were you there when I won my first award in grade six?
Where were you when I needed you the most?
Oh, that's right. At work.
Father, you could have been there. You were self employed.
Mother, all you had to do was plan ahead.
You never did.
Who was there?
Neither of you.
Yet here are pictures of us three...
We're standing in front of the whole school board.
You're smiling
Holding me up as if you had done that in the beginning.
But it's all a show
In front of everyone else, you'll be my pillars
However, once the lights go out the you will no longer hold me up.
What would you have thought if I told you that I won the popularity contest so that you would be there?
I pushed to be nominated as Homecoming Committee so that you would be there because the parents were required?
What would you think to know that I will always consider you as blood but I have other mothers in my life that are closer?
That I had fathers that were there?
I'm not bitter about it today. But I do know that neither of you have an idea.
I told myself that I didn't want my children to go through what I went through
That I learned what NOT to do from you
And hopefully, I will never do what you have done unto me
For blood is family
But family is not always blood.
-
I wrote this with the pictures of my parents next to me. It was the first and last event that my parents attended. I used to be bitter about it but their absence cannot be changed. All I can do now is move forward and not treat my children the way that they treated me. (Or my sisters for that matter). -DJ
So in this case, this is a barrier bypassed but not broken.