“Family” was written for dVerse, in which we were asked to write a haibun about beginnings.
Family, a Haibun
The year’s early yet, but today I feel I’ve lived a lifetime. A conversation with a brother I haven’t connected with in two years stirs emotions like combustible chemicals in a beaker. It isn’t him, but all of the recent familial conversations, in which I have slowly come to terms with the realization I will never happily have all of my siblings in the same room ever again. In some ways, it’s a tragic thought, at our age, to know there are insurmountable issues when time is short. I’m still the naïve youngest child, wishing, hoping, smiling, cheering, prompting hope, clinging to an ideal, when none is nigh.
An ideal no one else shares.
They are satisfied in separate worlds, sometimes asking about their siblings, schadenfreude rising as buried rivalry. I provide information, as possible, doused with no emotion.
It should be enough, to love them all, but it would be more if they loved each other.
The mourning dove’s mate
perishes under hawk’s claws.
Winter gray abides.
Sascha Darlington
This is such an interesting write. Siblings are born to the same parents….grow up together…and there is familial love. But we are reminded, that does not insure “liking.”
I’m also reminded that that we can never recapture those found memories our our childhood….and perhaps sometimes they are blurred a bit by the passage of time.
Thank you, Lillian.
Thank you so much, Lillian! 🙂