Orphaned

I wake from the dream

He was carrying his golf clubs

talking about a great game

the game he loved so much

and gave up so long ago

I was grateful he was playing

thinking he was in bed

sleeping or dying

He wasn’t 

but then of course, he did

She doesn’t say a word to me

She rarely does 

during these nocturnal visits 

I wish she would

She was a woman of few words in life, too

It might be because 

She has been gone longer than him

by almost

twenty years

A long time

Soon I will have lived longer on this planet 

without a mother than with one

That is sad

by most standards

not really anyone’s plan

There are millisecond moments when I think

I can’t wait to tell Daddy

about a child’s achievement

or a funny thing that happened

and then I remember I can’t

This is a club

all of us join 

God willing

the sort-of lucky ones

not feeling so lucky though

The pain

The longing

The regrets

The missed opportunities

The stolen time

Friends talk about their aging parents

Apologize for complaining

Feel guilty they have them

I wish they wouldn’t

complain or apologize

I know what I have

and what I don’t

What they have

and what they won’t

Membership isn’t free

I want to save them from 

the emptiness

from the missed milestones

from the watery eyes

after a dream

And the feeling all-day 

of aloneness

Motherless

Fatherless

of being an orphan

Despite how full my life is

How much love there is

How completely I live

How much peace I experience

I wish they could have had more time 

So they could see

the woman I have become

But maybe this woman

this maturity

only comes

with being an orphan