I was named after my mother because she hoped
that I could fill the hole inside my father’s chest,
make him smile the way she used to,
and make him feel alive again,
after leaving him alone and fragile.

My mother loved my father enough to leave,
even when she didn’t want to–
especially when he asked her not to.

She said, she said,
“I’ll never be the song that heals and rouses you
from the sadness that has taken root
in the space between your lungs.
I can never be, I will never be the one.”

My father loved enough to keep her still
as he painted her image in his mind one last time
–loved enough to shake the thousand chips of paint,
dried up from years of waiting for her return.

But father knew, as the last wind blew
and tore the last traces of mother away,
that there was never a hole to fill,
just a hand to hold when it’s getting cold
and tiny fingers to clasp as life goes fast
towards the sweet, sweet exit lane.

Mother was always going to leave,
in every lifetime we would re-take and re-live,
but father was never going to be alone.