Tonight I had a momentary, emotional meltdown - so bloody embarrassing! I pride myself on emotional strength - I am not one to express emotions openly, well...not the “watery-eye syndrome” anyway. Time is catching up with me, and new life experiences as well. So much to learn, so dumb a brain. I am on the council on my church - everyone is so knowledgeable about things, and then there is me - lost in a maze, with thoughts that seem so unspiritual when statued next to others. And yet, my heart is spiritual, I think. But why then do I seem so ungiving, almost selfish in comparison. Perhaps I went the road less traveled and it is going to take far too many lifetimes to find my way to the light, and then it will end up being a train at the end of the tunnel instead of the light for which I desperately yearn.

Tonight I find myself thinking of the father I had for three short years. I wonder if he would love me? This thought comes to mind, as I have a friend so loved by her parents - so loved, the tears come to me just thinking of how incredible that must be, no words were ever created that could illustrate that kind of loving sensation. I realized years ago that I suffered from something called skin hunger. When someone touches you in a positive way, your body emits endorphins that soothes the mind, creating peace within the body’s spirit. Once my father died, the only loving hands I would ever really know also departed. From that time on, the only touch I would know were related to pain and suffering - that was my life. I would eventually shut this body off to feelings, and actually not really feel the pain - however, pain became recognition - pain meant I was still alive. Emotions just did not exist - no joy, no sadness, just nothing. But things are changing and I am not sure how to handle anything anymore. The room I have always known has let down it parts of its walls and I just do not know what to do, how to react. This is a poem I wrote about the loss of my father.

Death permeates the room,
and a child stands barren
before the casket. Her eyes -
deep wells of darkness,
where only a short time prior
dwelled the pretty sunshine of life.
A little heart rests dormant
in her chest, as the blood of life
has been siphoned from her arteries.
In her brain, the tissues have
withered, crispy - dried.
Life’s cerebral symphony of motion -
no longer active - void
of thought or feeling.
A child - undergoing
the effects of death -
her father has died
and death has enshrouded her life.