Losing Dad

 My father was an only child.

Though he had four step-brothers,

he was a dozen years behind the rest,

his father, like theirs, drowned in drink, 

his mother, dominant, protective.

My mother took over from her:

the eldest of nine, she ran his life

as she had her siblings.

We all knew she was the boss,

but, oh, we loved our dad.

I was his fair-haired girl,

was sweet and smart and

(affirmatively) Daddy's girl.

Until.

There was no money for college, so 

I won a scholarship.

No room or board, so

I lived at home.

There was no money for grad school, but

there was a fellowship.

But I needed a signature, and he said no.

We argued; it would cost him nothing, but

he refused.

I stormed upstairs and packed a bag,

going anywhere but where he wanted me to be:

under his roof, under his thumb.

My mother caught me and asked what I needed.

She signed.

I left for grad school that fall,

and nothing was ever the same.

I never asked him for anything again.

I pitied him: a selfish man who could not see

beyond himself.

I was not hostile, not angry--

just no longer his.

Heritage

 I don’t remember stories at bedtime,

Or goodnight kisses, or anything much beyond

“Clean your plate” or “Time for bed.”

My mom was not my friend;

She gave orders.

I never thought she liked me much,

or I, her. My sister was first,

my brother, the long-awaited boy.

I was just...there.

 

She’s gone, now; and I

don’t think of her every day,

don’t even miss her that much.

She is not a constant presence, 

a voice in my conscious thoughts.

But, as I walk my neighborhood,

I find myself naming hostas and smoke trees,

cannas and daylilies,

hydrangeas and portulacas...

 

I know them all:

those names my mother taught me,

the gift bequeathed to me alone, 

as I sat atop the flat brown rock

in her hillside garden--

her third-best child,

surrounded by her violets;

me, there, in her garden,

among her other loves.