Monday, May 14, 2007

Family History Deja vu

If Mommy only knew all that occurred,
She would turn over in her grave.
She’d question and explore the said misdeed
to figure why anyone would behave

that way to their sibling, their own blood,
their family. It would cause Mom great pain,
release memories, an entire flood
of them reminding her of the campaign

her family led against her when they
declared her dead, and sat Shiva for her
forsaking her, long before the day
when she lay in the funeral parlor

dead, having been ravaged by the cancer
which destroyed and took her away.
Then - her family came to see her.
They should have been ashamed to come that day.

Her family disowned her when she married Dad
who, although he was Jewish too, had been married
before with a son, then divorced. Her family had
no tolerance of this, being orthodox, and such
... thus they, considered her Dead!

My mother suffered so much from her illness
and trying to raise us four children.
She did the best she could under her duress.
She’d wonder what could make this occur again.

that now, I, the youngest am forsaken
by two of my sisters, one who just passed on
ravaged too, by the cancer that has overtaken
and polluted my family’s gene pool,
... oh sorrows, please be gone

I am the lone survivor, who, as of yet
have not fallen prey to the horrific scourge
I live under the fear and the threat
of cancerous death and pray to emerge

safely through the onslaught and expulsion
from family that my mother lived through
and wonder why all this must be redone
and why, even dialogue on this, is taboo.