Lorraine

Remember how we fought
at four and five –
over whose turn it was
to push the baby buggy?

Your Campbell soup baby face
locks curlier than mine;  
eyes a brighter sparkle

How you withdrew from me with age
ashamed your mother was an alcoholic –
I did not care, carried my own secrets

How you chose drugs to cope,
while I went straight – the line
too wide to cross, it seemed.

You were my roots, dear friend
the rock I needed to ground me
Life, back then, never easy

Secrets tore us apart – projections
of judgments never actualized
somehow, I never measured up

I see you now, shrouded in the mist
of my own grief, understand that your turmoil
ran deeper than I had known, and one day

when we meet in Heaven,
I will embrace the whole you
and we will laugh at how secrets

whose very disclosure would have solidified us
kept us more and more distant – so little
did we know of love at the time.

(Lorraine died at the age of 26 – complications from drug use. After her death, I learned that she was a lesbian, a secret that she thought she could not share with me at the time. She had not known that I would not have judged her. Sadly, we never had the chance. I loved her so.)

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VJ

Permission to write, paint, and imagine are the gifts I gave myself when chronic illness hit - a fair exchange: being for doing. Relevance is an attitude. Humour essential.

42 thoughts on “Lorraine”

    1. Thanks LuAnne. We were next door neighbours and I can’t remember a door being closed to either of us – my house was hers and hers mine, till my family moved away

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  3. So sorry to hear you and your sister were never reconciled. Our siblings are the closest blood relatives we have after the passage of our parents. Me and my siblings were raised to compete with each other. We are still learning how to support and encourage each other in our old age. Praying that my children will continue to support and encourage each other after I’m gone.

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    1. Thanks Liz. She was actually the girl next door – my best friend growing up. I am still in touch with her family and game my second daughter her name.

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  14. So powerful, especially these words, for me: …”projections
    of judgments never actualized”. How easy it can be to push the most important people away. Thank you, VJ, for sharing. 💕

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  16. Thank you so much VJ for sharing this. I am so moved by your courage.
    As Mothers we all have regrets…I certainly do. Through our learning and speaking about our personal experience we help others who are going through similar trauma. Janet

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    1. I believe that is true, Janet. I wanted to share Lorraine and my story, especially now, when society’s choices threaten to promote more secrets. We can’t go back to sleep. Thank you.

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