Three Thoughts One Day

My prison is in a city of the living.

I was sentenced to life.

Everyone else is on the outside.

People I know go on and live lives,

have children who thrive,

and marry and achieve.

Even my family come home with their love

and I step outside my secret cell,

to greet like a free woman and smile.

When they return to their homes,

my house returns to silence;

I step back behind bars.

There.

I hugged everybody I could.

And I hugged 'em good.

A mother can do that; a mother should.

My mother died when I was a child

so I didn't learn hugging from her.

And didn't know hugs were something I wanted

to give, so I used to demur.

Now older and wiser I don't hold back

from hugging if I feel the call.

My grandmotherly wish extends to the world,

and I say, "God hug us all."

******

I awoke one morning in Christmas week with such a yearning to be alone with God, my God, my protector and cherisher and sanctuary. Away from my life, alone with just God and silence. To be held, and to hold to, the First Cause and Final Rest which is surely (though I am not always sure) Love.

Was it just another escapist symptom of grief and depression? Maybe. But still, it gifted me with hope. Maybe some day or some how this union or reconciliation with the Loving Father, or the Great Mother, will be realized. Don't we all have the primal urge or instinct for protection of ourselves, for security in some final and lasting sense? Or even better, the ultimate dream, where not only do we escape our failures and losses, but they are actually resolved and restored? What a thought, and so full of hope that my failing self can hardly hold on to it. An occasional fleeting grasp is all I can expect.