"LEFT UNSAID"
(For parents everywhere who have lost a child)

We remember how you waved goodbye
Your college life ahead
We never thought they'd be no chance
To say things left unsaid
Like how we really loved you
How you made us very proud
How your talent and your presence
Made you stand out in a crowd
We never had an inkling
That behind your smiling face
Was a soul so badly tortured
In a dark and lonely place
Your laughter hid an ocean full
Of worries and despair
We never saw a flicker
Of a life no longer there
If only you had opened up
If only we had knew
The heartache and the worries
You were putting yourself through
We might have saved you from it all
Instead we're now bereft
And grieving as we think of you
For us there's nothing left
You were our world, our everything
The reasons we'd awake
The sunshine in our daily lives
The icing on the cake
You were our one and only child
So every tear we shed
Is a precious crystal memory
Of the things we left unsaid.

by David Whitney   c 2020