easter
in this dream
I’m looking at an old family photo
25-year-old black + white
mother father brother + me
the classic easter pose in the yard
outside grandpa + grandma’s house
my focus is on my dad
he’s so young
younger than I am now
and he looks so scared!
I feel compassion + tenderness for this
frightened young man who took on too much
a family he was ill-prepared to handle.
I know some of his fear
I feel it myself in my own life every day
the fear of being a bad father
the fear of being a father too soon
the fear of losing my life + my dreams to
the demands of a wife + a child
he has good reason to be afraid
he looks lonely
no one’s taught him how to do this
nobody’s backing him up.
I feel his loneliness + his fear for the first time
not in my head but in my heart + my gut
I’m surprised to feel such thorough compassion for him
as he was at that time
I’m so used to hating the man I knew as my father
angry insensitive frightening hateful cruel
I don’t feel comfortable identifying with
this man I’ve cast as my personal demon.
this dream frightens me because I’m afraid I’m like him
but it also encourages me
it tells me that
maybe I’m beginning to see him as a person
instead of a demon
maybe I’m beginning to let go of him at last.
The easter by Rick Belden, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
5 Comments
1. Child Abuse Survivor &raq&hellip | April 17th, 2009 at 6:48 am
[...] Rick Belden sent us a poem for April, simply titled easter [...]
2. MarjakaThriver&hellip | April 18th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Wow. I am blown away by this powerful poem. Thank you for having the courage and openness to share this. I am the founder and maintain The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. I try to get around to all the entry bloggers even in edition months when I’m not actually hosting the carnival at my own blog. Thank you so much for joining us and I hope you will again sometime.
3. Rick&hellip | April 18th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Thanks very much, Marjaka, for taking the time to read and comment on this piece. I’m pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to the carnival and I hope to do so again in the future.
4. Patricia - Spiritual Jour&hellip | April 21st, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Rick, thank you for sharing this poem about your memories and your dad. The day that I was able to see my dad as a little boy with his own abuse issues from his alcoholic dad was probably the day that I started to forgive him a little. It was still years later before all of my forgiveness issues were finally resolved with my dad shortly before his death. Seeing him as a child being abused by his alcoholic father made it easier for me to understand the things he did to me.
5. Rick&hellip | April 21st, 2009 at 6:35 pm
I appreciated your comment, Patricia. This dream came to me at a point when I was, for the first time in my life, really feeling and expressing the anger I had for my father for the way he treated me, not just as a child, but as a teen and as an adult. My spontaneous recognition in the dream of our shared humanity was, as you said, my first significant step on a journey of many years, toward forgiveness. I won’t say I’m there yet … I’m not … but it’s a long road to travel, and I’ve come a long way.