The parcels arrive daily,
like seaweed and shells
from the tide.
She keeps calling,
buying,
collecting,
gifting and re-gifting.
She’s hates if someone
calls her a hoarder,
and can’t understand
why she was prescribed
an antidepressant.
When I visit
there’s no place to sit,
and it resembles less
the home I grew up in
and more a packaging
and shipping depot.
In a rare moment
of lucidity and candor,
she confessed
she’s trying to find the
perfect gift
to give so people
would like her.
Digging further,
she knows
she’s trying to find
the perfect gift,
and I ask her
what’s the one thing
she wants.
I already know
the answer,
and she sobs
and I just sit there
unable to do
anything about
my father’s death.
This bring back memories of my mother before she vanished to dementia, the home remains with all it's content but she's now in a retirement home. I wonder why she kept ordering things.. she never told me... but exactly that shipping depot... deeply touching.
ReplyDeleteOh, Mosk, this is such a powerful poem! I think it points the reader in the direction that one of the reasons people hoard is that they are trying to fill up something inside them - a loss. And accumulating things is an effort to do that. But....it can never EVER fill up the hole made through a death. Your poem moved me greatly.
ReplyDeleteSuch a beautifully poignant piece.
ReplyDeleteYou illustrate such depth of understanding in these verses that you made me feel for her. She can neither lure him back nor ignore change forever. I want to hug her and take her for a walk on a beautiful beach where she can pick up the "gifts from the sea."
ReplyDeleteSadly.. nothing
ReplyDeletewill ever replace
love.. either
given or taken..
but nothing
can take
Love away
when
lived as is
as LOVE as now..
no other answers
i know of truly
but
Love as is NOW..:)
Oh this is so sad. I can see her, sobbing, missing your father, trying to fill the empty space with what cannot possibly fill it. Bless you for understanding. And for being there.
ReplyDeleteMosk--this is so poignant--we will do anything to escape our pain when it is big enough
ReplyDeleteI feel so bad for your mother...poor dear. Many people choose many different ways to fill up those empty spaces inside. You can't blame them for not wanting to hurt.
ReplyDeleteThis is the kind of poem which instantly punished me for being too judgemental. It started off with the hoarding and I'd just been recently to the home of a lady who is a hoarder, so was thinking how awful it was and feeling sorry for her (but also slightly nauseous in her house, no place to sit, no clean teacup etc.). But then you so gently peeled back the layers and the reasons for the desperate hoarding, the sense of loss, and I felt like a right old cow for daring to judge!
ReplyDeleteThank you for reminding me to suspend judgement and seek to understand instead.
This is so sad, Mosk.
ReplyDeleteTears are falling over the sense of loss that you shared so brilliantly!
ReplyDeleteWe all try to fill our voids in different ways. Nice that you explored until you helped your mother and you identify what she was trying to fill. It must be such a challenge to deal with this. I wish you well.
ReplyDeleteSo often we are looking for the way to "fix" people when what they need is human contact. This is beautiful and sensitive poem.
ReplyDeleteThere is always an empty place to fill. This is sad, powerful, and too true of many.
ReplyDeleteSuch a poignant pome - all so very often the thing we truly need cannot be bought - there in lies the paradox of consumerism..trying to sell us everything we 'need' - a powerful poem
ReplyDelete