Brother you've done it once again
Doctor Brother now thinks I'm insane
Analyzed me without hearing my pain
Brother should I forgive you?

Brother! Brother can you forgive me?
I've done only what I wanted to do
I couldn't live up to you, so I was me
Do you know, brother, that I love you?
Brother will you forgive me?

Father, Father can you forgive me?
Do you know why I've leaned on you?
I needed childhood support, not money
Do you know, father, that I love you?
Father will you forgive me?

Mother! Mother can you forgive me?
Do you know how I tried to love you?
Mother, why was it so hard to tell me?
Do you know, mother, that I love you?
Mother will you forgive me?

03/31/1983

Author's Note: The healing of a family is both the most important and the most difficult thing a broken family can fix. It can always be fixed, but the key is forgiveness, and how does one forgive a lifetime of pain. Not just a few bad days, but every day, filled with one kind of hurt or another. It doesn't have to be physical, could just be little jabs everyday, you know, the kind where a child is told they are worthless, they will never amount to anything.... And the comparison to siblings who always seems to do everything right, who always get congratulated for their accomplishments, all the while you get scolded for the smallest of things. A lifetime of never being hugged or told that you are loved will lead a child to believe he is not loved, or even worse, left with no understanding of what love is. And then the child becomes 20 something and then 40 something and still doesn't know how to have a relationship, still hasn't known a day of true love in his life. One might think there is something wrong with the child, but it is not the child there is something wrong with and those who sculpted this work of art are not art lovers. My brother, the former psychologist, tells me that I have to speak to my mother about the great divide. I tell him I can't, I won't. I tell him that I don't want to, she's the one who created the divide. And he tells me that because neither one of us is willing to admit we are both wrong, neither one of us will ever take the first step to walk across the water and realize that miracles are not impossible, they just require the basic ingredient of faith, believing in oneself. And I respond that the hardest thing of all is to believe in myself, as no one ever took the time to plant the seed of self-esteem within me. Yes, if only I could believe in myself, that faith could make miracles happen. JJ

Posted on 10/08/2005
Copyright © 2024 JJ Johnson