Family Encounters Poem by Curtis Johnson

Family Encounters
By Curtis Johnson

Father passed on nearly ten years before I got married
He was not there when I finished high school;
Nor was he around when I finished college
My youngest sibling was nine months old
There was a period of grief at his passing;
But then survival demands appeared and said,
“Let there be life”, and I moved on

At the time, his absence never bothered me
I learned to live without him; to leap from boy to man
I never accused or charged him for dying too soon; or did I?
I never blamed him for the pains and the wounds; or did I?
There were signs that he was becoming a better person to live with;
But I don’t really know how I would have differed had he lived longer

I learned many years later that I subconsciously shut him out; I shouldn’t have. I charged him for things he did, and accursed him for things he shouldn’t have done.
Without mercy, I sentenced and banished him and all that he represented; But I shouldn’t have.
Subconsciously, I reacted to his negative ways, but it was too late
There were things I did not know, and other things I never considered.
I silently, without fuss or fight, without sufficient evidence, shut him out

Yes, I rendered him unimportant and irrelevant; Anything positive was blocked out,
Never rising to an appreciative level.
It would take years to even realize this.

Yes, father was dead physically, but he deserved a kind memory.
However, for years, I was as if frozen, silent, and unable to remember anything of value

But then it happened! ! Twelve years ago at a family reunion, a younger sister spoke well of our father and sat me straight.
She spoke of things I never knew of the man whose memory I
had crushed, and whose influence I thought that I could live without.
It was like a reunion with my long deceased father; and as if I was
given a second encounter with him. I tell you, I forgave him and conscious let his influence and memory back into my life; and I am the better for it.

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