Bittersweetness

Posted bywordsandcoffee1Posted inCancer, Motherhood, Poetry, W3 PromptsTags:, , , , , , , , 

You ask how I know "who is who"
today as we page through 
countless baby pictures

It's easy to differentiate
the expressions you three make,
your homegrown fixtures

But would I be lying if I said
what gives it away is my head,
my lash-less eyes and slow gestures

I wrote this poem for the Wea’ve Written Weekly prompt #143 at the Skeptic’s Kaddish. As Poet of the Week last time around, I had the honor of selecting this week’s Poet, who is Tia. Here is Tia’s prompt:

  • Theme: The bittersweet, painful, or unsettling aspects of the past and its hold on the present;
    • Optional Challenge: Use imagery of shadows, cracks, or reflections to add depth to the theme;
  • Form: A “square” (e.g., 2×2, 3×3, 4×4, or any other pattern you choose);
    • “Rows” represent stanzas;
    • “Columns” represent the number of lines in each stanza;
      • For example: 3×3 = 3 stanzas of 3 lines each; and 4×4 = 4 stanzas of 4 lines each.

We were looking through baby pictures today, which inspired the poem. My youngest asked why I’m always wearing a “little hat” on in all of his baby pictures where I appear but never in any of the pictures of his brothers as babies. “I didn’t have hair then” is a response that leads to countless other questions as it turns out, and none of those responses appease a five-year-old. That time was surely bittersweet: the joys of our tiny youngest and the trauma of cancer will forever be interlinked.

23 thoughts on “Bittersweetness”

    1. So true! The questions are constant at this age. The big obsessions he has right now are about baby pictures/babies in general and hedgehogs vs porcupines. I’m not really sure what started either of these, but he asks questions about them daily, lol.

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      1. I remember son#2 asking the what if questions. They ranged from “What if an alien came down and opened my car door and took me?” to the more realistic “What if I swallowed a grape whole?”… I figured he’d out grow it but he’s 37 and he’s still asking me “What if…” Now I believe it is just to jerk my chain! 🤪

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    1. It’s funny how similar people can look as babies even when they grow to look entirely different as adults. My youngest sister was blonde with blue eyes at birth, and now she’s dark-haired with hazel eyes and much taller than me, lol.

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