3 brothers, and the kid within

the kid in us

in all the fog and avoidance

that swirled around the middle brother

as cancer pulled him faster and faster

away from us and from the moments he held dear,

I had a vision, a clear image of him as a boy,

a boy scared, perplexed, vulnerable,

I then lost my shields against the hard truth coming at him

and that little boy opened the door into my sorrow,

yesterday I visited the oldest brother

and I felt the kid within him

waking up into this world

and desperately working to make sense of it all,

his body frail, his mind laboring to figure it all out,

I imagined the first born son

to the parents who doted on him,

a boy who never quite figured out how to grow up

and subject to the pain of harsh judging peers,

in my therapy sessions the youngest brother

feels the kid within him, too,

afraid, tested, judged by his parents,

doubting himself as to whether father 

judges him as good and right,

the teenager, too, is in me,

the husband, the parent, the grandparent,

the teacher who has shepherded so many

who have worked to let the kid within grow up strong,

now, though, I feel myself as the child,

first coming into conscious action,

and I find it easy to imagine father as judge,

and I fear for his verdict.

by Henry H. Walker

June 30, ‘16