Submission Sixty is from Jen Owen. I found her because of an organization that I am closely tied to. Poetrynight. She did this wonderful photo album about finding her strength from poetrynight and I friend requested her on Facebook because I knew the people in the photos. About a week later I found out that she was also one of my friends boyfriend's mothers. Then she located my project and submitted this:
I lost my mother in 2002 to her 4th battle with Cancer. She beat Breast cancer. She beat a brain tumor. She beat bladder and ovarian cancer...and I thought she would just keep living forever because she was so strong and had so much hope that she would be here to see my children have children. She called me one afternoon and I picked up the phone and I knew it was her because I just knew...and I knew why she was calling me. The cancer had spread through her whole body and when she got that news - all of her hope was extinguished with the words "You are going to die....this time."
I told her I loved her. I told her it was ok to stop fighting. I told her it was ok to die. And she stopped hoping to keep living long enough to see her great grandchildren and started hoping that I would continue hoping for things when she was gone. She switched her focus in the last few months of her life and started hoping that I would do something with the talents she helped create in me...art, photography and poetry as well as lessons of how to be a good mother when life didn't seem to ever throw you anything but crap. She started hoping that in watching my own mother and my best friend die a horrible painful cancer filled death - that I would grow stronger and learn how to see my struggles and pain - as gifts...and learn from them. She hoped I would pass on everything she had taught me growing up...to my children, so that when they grow up and have children of their own...part of her would still be undeniably present in the way they live their lives...and her original hope to be there with her Great Grandchildren (in heart) - would still be a reality.
I tried to think of one thing that gives me the most hope and had a really hard time until I remembered this poem I wrote about 4 years ago. The one thing that my Mother taught me growing up, was to be grateful for everything you have - even if its not what you originally wanted or hoped it to be...because there are some people that will never have even that much.
The one thing that gives me the most hope - is that Im working so hard to ensure that my own children grow up being grateful in this world that seems to force selfishness and self centeredness down their throats every chance it gets...by not giving them everything they want or ask for. Making them work for things. Save for things. Be thankful for second hand things instead of upset we couldn't get them brand new...happy about wearing thrift store clothing, playing with puzzles that have a piece or two missing because it used to belong to someone else that loved it once or being grateful about having an old rusty bike to ride instead of the $200 shiny new one they put on their birthday list...and sometimes they don't understand why I do these things and sometimes they get angry at me for refusing to give them what they want but when they are grown and stand before their own children who are asking for a new bike - when the neighbor offered up their child's old rusted one...I can only hope they say no to my grandchildren and pass down a little piece of my Mother to them...that is my hope. That she lives on through me, through my children...to stand face to face with her great grandchildren someday and speak her words of wisdom through the mouths of those she missed out on watching grow up..and that her greatest hope will be realized too.
UGLY BIKE
I want you to have an ugly bike.
One that you are ashamed of -
with rusted pedals and broken spokes
that will never make snapping noises
with playing cards woven between them
like the rest of the neighborhood kids.
I want you to have an ugly bike.
One that wobbles side to side
when you try to go faster -
like little old ladies in crosswalks,
arms full of groceries and arthritis
at busy intersections.
I want you to have an ugly bike.
One that throws you off
and gives you a forehead scab
when you push the brakes too hard,
like broken race horses
tired of being kicked in the side.
I want you to have an ugly bike.
A screaming banshee
when you turn bent handle bars.
I want it to wail and screech
a constant reminder to you
of how much it was loved - once.
Because I love you.
Because
I want you to know what it feels like
to be laughed at for things out of your control -
like kids that cant have bikes
....because their legs don’t work.
Because I want you to know
what its like to feel off balance -
like little boys in white walled rooms
that spend their days being held
over waste bins full of today’s
chemo reactions.
I want you to have an ugly bike.
Because I want you to learn
that ugly things can be beautiful,
and forgotten things
still have plenty of life in them -
Like car crash scarred cheekbones.
Like burn victim smiles,
and starving Vietnam Veterans stuck in
soiled sheets all day
while overweight nurses play cribbage
and order stuffed crust pizza
with three different dipping sauces.
I want you to have an ugly bike.
Because I want to see your eyes light up
when you get new plastic rainbow tassels
to hang from your rusty, bent handlebars
and watch you race off into the horizon
Grateful
Because I love you.
Photo and Poem Submitted by : Jen Owen - 2006
This is the most beautiful piece of honesty
ReplyDeleteI've read in a very long time.