Shadow

There is a deep seated anger in a person who has been hurt by the people who should be the first to love them. When I met tope a long time ago, it was very difficult to make him smile. Even up to this day, everything he does comes with a kind of hesitation. An afterthought. A silent “what if”. As though he is judging himself by the standards of the person he has told himself should not matter but matters all the more. When I met his mother, I also met one of the most admirable women I’ve ever known, for anyone who could bring up the person I now love is worthy of nothing less than my admiration. But even with my daily persistence, I could not erase the shadow that follows him around. I could not enter the world he has made around himself and around the ghost of his bitter heartaches which he himself would not let rest. This is what happened to him after all those years of unexpressed anger. Of bitterness curdled into a vinegar.

How do you teach letting go to someone who cannot let go?

How do I ask him to let go of his anger when all he has to remember you by is the anger?

I light a candle for you when I light a candle for my own forgotten ancestors. Sometimes I find myself praying to you more than any of the saints. Praying that he may learn to forgive you. so that those who are left here who deserve his love may receive it completely, without your shadow clouding the brilliance of his smile.

September 26, 2008