Portrait of a Mother

For the one who is, the one who was,
and the one who never would be,
for all my children.

I had a daughter once who died.
I have another by my side.
I had a son I’ve never known,
he who will not know our home.

A girl who’s future so small and bleak,
The one whose life is gone, as we speak.
Lit softly in my arms to rest
and nestled her head against my chest.

Her sister survives in a world below
while she looks down as we onward go.
A distant mortal memory of heart,
but one that time nor space could part.

All of her, a part of me.
Shadows of her life I see.
Dancing in and out of time
reverberating through this rhyme.

Her life I carry with me now
as I trudge along somehow.
For her sister’s sake, I survive.
I’m learning how to be alive.

Though my son was never mine,
he existed within my mind.
A figment of imagined child,
With thoughts of him my mind goes wild.

A boy we were to never know.
A son, not ours to call our own.
I love him now, I loved him then,
I’ll love him ’til my days shall end.

For all my children near and far,
for all of them, for who they are,
My heart belongs to every one,
and will until my days are done.

Read more on the Three Short Years blog