Serenity Prayer

G-d grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change.

The courage to change the things I can.

And the wisdom to know the difference.

AMEN!

It was something I heard from a very early age as I attended those meetings with my mother.

Not by choice of course and

Not because I had any addiction - then.

How could a child know what the future held?

At least the message was positive, healthy, uplifting even. Pointless really, in the end.

Sitting amongst those happy, lost and hopeful souls.

Ever searching for something to believe in.

Maybe they already found that thing to believe in. There in that meeting.

That den of anonymity.

Though each one secretly wanting to be known by someone, anyone, everyone.

Cheering each other on with claps and chips and birthdays and such.

Daily marathon phone calls.

Talking each other off of bridges or bottles or pills or donuts or pizza - whatever the temptation of choice.

It became an obsession for her

Or a "lifestyle" as they call it.

Traveling the country.

Telling her story of "success."

Shedding layers upon layers of clothes into a suitcase. Giant to small.

But was she? Successful I mean.

It seems cruel even to write that now

Possibly even a betrayal

Though names are not used to protect the innocent.

Because she was an innocent. If innocent means guilty.

All of that "success" only to be stolen too early by thick, black contemptuous cancerous cells.

Spreading and multiplying.

Faster than they could cut them out.

Kidney, Brain, Lymph, Lung

All over.

There was no stopping it's wrath.

But I am not innocent.

I have faked my whole life to make you happy.

To keep you here longer.

But it didn't work anyway.

The one thing I do know is that in spite of it all you loved me more than life itself.

As I love my children today. I know how deep you loved.

You just couldn't help the rest.

Why do I look at this ancient history now? Am I hoping for insight, for closure, for peace, for change?

A catalyst perhaps?

Is it an exercise in futility or one in self -exploration?

Why I am the way I am.

Why I have become what I became.

Can I love?

Can I be happy?

Can I be healthy?

Do I even care?

When you were so sad and fragile, you used to speak of suicide. It's true. I remember wondering why you would tell a child such things.

Begging you not to tell your child such things.

Breaking my heart.

But you were so broken.

It's an option I've never considered.

Wait - that's another lie I've told.

I did consider it then. Way back then.

Not now-never now.

Then, your words only made me go deeper and deeper into myself.

Protecting my spirit from the dangerous spread.

I wrote then to escape. Now I write to feel.

Can I still feel? Will I ever truly feel?

Or am I destined to be locked inside this thick fortress of flesh until death?

Numb, numb keep it all in. That's what I knew - what I know.

Swallow those feelings.

Stuff them down my throat till I gag.

Till the devils pull and pinch them out with their oozy hot claws.

Scratching my insides raw.

Until it all ceases - ah a blessing.

Or a curse.

I do fear death- greatly.

A death like yours most certainly.

The kind that runs in our family.

Early, painful robbing the survivors of their most beloved.

Those beautiful dark big breasted genes contain a poison so deadly - like Zyklon B

There's no escape.

Is that what awaits me?

Is that my fate?

It was so hard to watch you suffer in life

and likewise in death

as your mom before you.

You tried to make the flesh soup - but to no avail. The outcome unchanged.

I know I haven't been the same since.

Nor will I ever be again.