Scars

I grew up in a small town in the heartland of Kansas surrounded by cornfields, and train tracks that led nowhere.  Embers of childhood 'what might have been' imaginings have long since faded into the recesses of my mind.  Dreams changed into an unexpected reality that carved out who I am, good and bad.  I was both crushed and strengthened by it. 

There were two rules in my hometown: you didn't have children before you were married, and you didn't marry interracially. There was a price to be paid for the love I'd found, I lost my family.  Holes in hearts never filled, not even by the love of others.  I would wait twenty-five years for the music's starts and stops, still not knowing
if a chair will be left for me in their home.  Conditions can be placed on love, I didn't know that as a child. 

Two became four, our lives now complete.  Then nightmares from war invaded his peace.  Our "complete life", completely falling apart.  So helpless and small compared to the enormity of his suffering, I was impotent to console him.  Enduring relentless torment, he turn-ed for relief and found its beginning through the very one some might say had abandoned him.  Programs and progress fall short to eradi-cate the damage done when one endures hell.  There are scars that can never be covered, only attempts to reconcile oneself to being maimed.  He's a strong man, a strong man with scars. 

As they grew, I saw my children through glasses of rose, not unlike you, if truth be laid bare.  How could I not know they were steeped
in the deception of drugs and alcohol, surrendering their futures to lies whispered in their ears.  We all grope in the darkness, and strug-gle to see truth with clarity of vision. Years of expectations, holding everything and everyone together; mounting pressure crashing down on me.  Eyes clouded by the fog of depression, I was blind and I was broken.   

Grandchildren arriving to sons and daughters not yet grown, a bless-ing because that's what babies are.  Drugs stopped and started, more babies, drugs stopped again if tapestries of lies can be unwoven.  At the end of the thread, children who visited didn't leave for years. 

In a dimly lit room, I sat beside others.  I uttered no words, yet they knew the depth of my pain, felt my silent shame.  One spoke, "no glasses here".  My trembling hands removed obstructions from my eyes, I saw the truth.  Exerting strength to reach them, we enabled them.  Attempts to redeem them only attached us to their bondage.
I was broken, but no longer blind. 

We walk today in freedom, limping from the battles of yesterday. Nothing is sure, save our determination to carry on the fight.  We
are a strong family, a strong family with scars.