For G J Cruikshank Poem by Roy William Gotaas

Watch what I’m doing, Mummy!
See what I’m making, Mummy!
And when she no longer responds
Because Mummy is dead ... what then?

Father, rarely there to watch,
But who shaded those times with fear,
Commented only on imperfection,
Rather than what was done for delight.
I grew to hate him... watching me alive,
Haunting & watching me dead.

Grandma... help me do this, Grandma!
She also went too soon, my always ally.
On my eighth birthday I confided to her
That I didn’t want to grow older
Because things would change and people die.
She comforted but didn’t contradict me:
Giving love with truth, she held me gently.
That year I was sent away to boarding school.

So Belloc’s lines come back to mind:
“Who will there be to comfort me,
And who will be my friend? ”
One was, who should have been my father,
Who fostered me, more friend than teacher
Though he taught me most of any.
It took me nearly forty years,
Keeping upright for his pride in me,
To know how much I loved him.
Even as I write his name,
My heart hurts for his absence
And tears start for his leaaving.