Category: Family

His regret – the son’s story

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Loss, Poetry, WarLeave a comment

He sits reading the letter from his father
it is a small reach after all these years
and he is not sure how he will respond
his father was a hero – but he wasn’t there.

It has been hard growing without a dad
his mother never loved anyone else and
always waited, and waited, but he never came
he’d felt so let down, this hero, HERO
and he couldn’t even visit his son
he should feel bitter, and yet
being in the forces himself now
he sort of understands.

He wishes his mother was still alive
she would help him come to a decision
she never stopped loving him, always, always
defending his decision to stay away
he knew she would have agreed to his search
she would be happy for him, she would smile
and he would melt, oh how he missed her
how he’d wished for a mum and dad to love.

He would find him and he would take steps
to see him and ask him why he’d never come home
though he already knew the answer. He didn’t know him
and yet – he had always missed him- and now
he needed to know him – he needed
an anchor to his past life
as he himself was about to go away
he too having a child, a little girl he adored
and he was terrified he too would run away
and the thought was more than he could bear.

Was this just an excuse after all these years
or was he going to use his father’s guilt for his own ends
he wasn’t sure, but he knew that he would do anything
rather than do what his father had done to him
he desperately wanted to know his dad
he missed not having had him around but
he missed his mother so much more.

In the midst of all of his confused emotions

He needed answers…would this man give them……..

©Joe Wilson – His regret-the son’s story 2014

Difficult conversations

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Illness, Loss, Love, old age, PoetryLeave a comment
One in three people over 65 will develop dementia and there is currently no cure. GETTY IMAGES
One in three people over 65 will develop dementia and there is currently no cure.
GETTY IMAGES

Wizened by the hardships of his life
he moved his tired old body to the edge,
it took him longer to get out of his bed
these days, but get up he would
for if there was one thing he had learnt
it was that time spent in bed was time
lost in the fields and the crops didn’t pick
themselves, of that he thought he was sure,
though he couldn’t quite remember why.

He sometimes wished that he had not been
so adamant about farming in the old way
– a bit of that confounded modern machinery
would sure help sometimes as digging potatoes
across all those acres was hard work and he’d
been doing it for so long he was beginning to
hate the blasted things – he certainly
never ate them, preferring instead to eat all
his food from cans as a way of getting his
own back on some other poor so and so
who probably hadn’t broken his back
at harvest time for sixty years.

Dad – Dad – it’s Tom , Dad, your son, never mind
Dad, perhaps you’ll remember me later. It’s alright.
What potatoes? – It’s alright Dad, let’s sit here
and you can tell me – no please – please Dad,
don’t cry – please don’t cry. I know Dad
I miss Mum too. I wish I could explain Dad
I really do.

Why does this horrible man always keep me from my work,
I’ve got tomatoes – – potatoes to pick, tomatoes, potatoes,
well I’ve got to pick them anyway. Why should I sit down?
Tell you about what? I’m not going to tell a stranger
where my potatoes are, or is it tomatoes? I’m not sure now.
I must sleep – I’ve got lots to do, I must be fresh when I start.

Dad – Dad – you sleep now then. I’ll just be in the next room. Perhaps
– perhaps we’ll talk a bit later. I miss you Dad………….

©Joe Wilson – Difficult conversations 2014

My life less ordinary

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Friendship, Fun, Illness, Love, Personal, Poetry, Point of ViewLeave a comment

contentment-inner-peace (1)

As the years go flying past
you realise just how much
your perspective changes and
when I now look back at how
things were I realise that far
from having had an uneventful life
mine has been one so full and rich
with love and laughter that I wonder
that there was time for it all to fit.

How we laughed as we left the wedding reception
and all those ‘old fogeys’ and drove away
to enjoy our honeymoon together – alone!
and how we loved each other finding fun in
all that we did together, sometimes
just looking at each other – and how
highly amused we were by the ‘jobs-worth’
car-park attendant by our hotel who stuck his hand out
the moment we crossed his threshold and said
“ten pee please”, he did it every time we went
there, often just to hear him say it again, and
how beautiful you looked in that dress that was
covered in the lovely cherry design. I think
everybody else loved you too.

How wonderful the mead tasted as we sat by the
pub fire in a place we’d never before heard of
never letting go of each others hands for a minute
and how the regulars who treated us so nicely
must have thought we were a bit bonkers.

The joys in raising our beloved children and
the intertwining pain of watching them sometimes
get a little hurt along the way, but our always
being there to help them find their own right solutions
has helped weave a rich tapestry through our lives.
The times when you want to take their pain and
make it your own – but can’t, the smile on their faces
and their laughter as they play with friends and
of course the grumpy expressions as they rail against
doing homework and tidying things like bedrooms. But
what pride we felt at their achievements along the way.

And now they too are married, one on a beach
under a lovely blue sky on the other side
of the world, and one in a most beautiful
church in our capital city. We spend such a
lot of time laughing with our grandchildren,
they are so very clever, and so funny – and
they just make us feel so young again.

Illness – illness!! Now there’s an unfortunate
word, one that has been used in our lives rather
more often than we would like. My wife has been ill,
survived and can still love and laugh. I have too,
but I can still love and laugh. Our children are not
unscathed either from this darker part of growing older,
and yet they too still happily love and laugh very much
and with all their hearts. Illness really is just
a small percentage of our time here.

So now when I reflect on my life I realise that
far from being ordinary I have been very lucky
indeed to have taken part in a life that has overflowed
with love and fun and laughter and only the occasional
sadness and it’s then that we help each other through
to the other side of it. It turns out the fact is
there has been nothing ordinary about my life at all.

And I’ll not be bowing out yet – not yet

©Joe Wilson – My life less ordinary 2014

Family down

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Loss, Love, Personal, Poetry, RegretLeave a comment

sadness_8_by_scarabuss

 
Going down the stairs on that March Saturday afternoon
I looked out of the landing window at the torrential rain
It was then that I heard a loud hollow thump as he fell
And I was never to see my father alive again.

I was just a little shy of my thirteenth birthday
It was the unhappiest and saddest of my days
My mother now a widow had lost her best friend
And the pain that followed hurt in many ways.

Five brothers and our sister had lost a rudder
To the ship that is a family going through life
And the empty place not filled beside the table
Strikes at the heart as with a rusty knife.

Time passes and my brothers number just one
And my sister makes us three and not now six
For over four decades and five my kin have fallen
And that’s one statistic nothing can ever fix.

Never fail to love the ones you care for
Never fail to tell them how much you care
For sometimes if you turn around for too long
You turn your head and they’re no longer there.

©Joe Wilson – Family down 2014

Surviving

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Love, Personal, PoetryLeave a comment

thankful

 

Strenuously pushing against inevitability
He fights desperately for every breath
But the overwhelming coronary attack
Has surely guaranteed his death.

In those last few moments that remain
He reflects upon the sum of his life
Filled with regret of such magnitude
That he’ll never again see his wife.

For their’s was a bountiful marriage
A life full of children and love
A life that he really didn’t want to leave
For it fitted him just like a glove.

He awoke some twenty hours later – alive
Saved, this mere mortal man
He’d live a much more thankful life now
For it seems death was not yet in his plan.

©Joe Wilson – Surviving…2014

Charabanc on the run 1900

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Fun, PoetryLeave a comment

https://jovisgoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/charabanc-on-the-run-1900.m4a

charabanc_edited

Racing now, well out of control
the charabanc rushed away down the hill
the man from in front who was carrying the red flag
ran after it with a powerful will
but the old charabanc had a full head of steam
and was not going to stop on its own
the driver it seems had left off the brake
and he too chased along as he moaned.

The speed limit set for this new kind of bus
was just four miles an hour at the most
but the speed it had gathered as it fair raced along
would easily get it first past the post
but this old charabanc was running on steam
so its boiler was pushing out clouds
and eventually all of the water ran dry
when it stopped in front of the crowds.

The driver caught up, the flagman caught up
as it happened there was no damage done
so they filled it with water and started it up
and sheepishly drove away from the fun
with the flagman in front with a frown on his face
as he listened to the charabanc’s hiss
for he no longer trusted the driver and his brake
and he was sure he’d not signed up for this.

©Joe Wilson – Charabanc on the run 1900

I dedicate this to my late grandfather-in-law, Norman, who as a boy carried the red flag. He later went on to own the company and I was very fond of him.

The sound file is inserted just for fun. If you read this aloud with as broad a Lancashire accent as you can manage you’ll get the idea I’m conveying. 🙂

The beat

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Love, PoetryLeave a comment

learning_edited

I’ve lived my life and to the full
adventures some, excitement yes
and now my time begins to shorten
one thing that I know for certain
that one thing is this
– children are the beat.

The greatest gift we can bestow
upon our child, boy or girl
is nurturing their sense to know
their sense to seek, to seek and learn
and of that learning
– what to discern.

The heartbeat of the new young child
the uplift to all our spirits
will make us all feel young at heart
they are the beat, it’s what they do
and in return we love
– the beat.

 

©Joe Wilson – The beat 2014

The Woman

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Friendship, Love, Personal, PoetryLeave a comment

daphne small

 

 

 

 

I saw the woman sitting at a table
and I felt naturally drawn to sit down
opposite her, but then found myself gazing at
a napkin label such was my embarrassment,
but she just smiled and said hello. I said
hello back and we just talked, and we talked.
We talked for what seemed like a lifetime
until we found ourselves sitting in the dark.
She burst out laughing when we realised, and
I did too. I got up on my own from the table to
go out with my friends, she was with my sister,
they were friends. It was then that I noticed that
the woman’s chair had wheels on it. That’s why
she never got up from the table. I shrugged, said
something like ‘seeya’ and went out with my mates.
The woman and I have chatted many times during the
forty-two years that we’ve been married. I guess that
means we’ve each told the other how much we love them
over fifteen thousand times. We said we would always remind
ourselves every day. I was never more glad of a decision I’ve
made than the day I chose to sit at that table. I was so glad
I made the acquaintance of, and then felt the love of
The Woman.

©Joe Wilson – The Woman 2014

Republished

The Empty Doorway

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Loss, Love, old age, PoetryLeave a comment

empty doorway 2_edited

It is the time of the greatest of sadness
The memories are still fresh and so raw
When the moment comes back to that tick of the clock
And the last time you walked in through that door.

One o’clock daily I will stare at the door
Begging it to open with you there
With your heart full of love that was sadly so frail
You’re now only a memory in this home that we’d share.

I touch one of your sweaters and smell your perfume
And my heart breaks as I think back to that night
When you told me you loved me and you would all your life
And you did, oh you did, now you’ve gone from my sight.

I still keep your diary by the side of the bed
I’ve decided not to open it for now
I think if it stays shut you’re perhaps still inside
I can deal with that, I think I know how.

It’s that time again now and I look at the door
Though I know that you’ll never come through
But I still have the memories of all that we shared
And they hold me together like you’d do.

When the clock ticks one now I stare at that door
I’ll stare at it till the day that I die
And by the time that they lay me into the earth
I’ll once again be there right by your side.

 

©Joe Wilson – The Empty Doorway 2014

An Inadequate System

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Illness, Loss, Love, Poetry, Point of View, politicalLeave a comment

can-stock-photo_csp16531921

He sat there, always looking out of a small round window
That could easily be a reflection of his tragic mind
Since the day he knew he’d been left on his own
It seemed like there was nothing in there left to find.

Every day from half-past eight and all day till five-past five
He sat immobile staring out, a sad look on his face
He’d never notice anyone, nor speak a single word
He’d sit there never stirring from his lonely lonely place.

He may have wondered where they’d gone, for they looked after him
But his parents, both of them now dead, had done their very best
Now here he was at fifty-three, an only child yet still
Just left to stare through windows, in old pyjama bottoms and vest.

He’ll be swallowed up by the system, and churned back out to the street
He’ll wander about in his own little world, and we won’t understand
He’ll be doing his best with what he knows and what he tries to follow
But our complex welfare system just won’t deal with his demands.

 

©Joe Wilson – An Inadequate System 2014