Our Last Visit

Blue leather lounge chair
center of the room
center of attention
sitting
aging
Fox News blaring
decades gone by
hate mongering
day and night
she’s hypnotized by hate to cover her loneliness

3,000 miles away
the distance felt as a betrayal
even 30 years later
I’m unforgiven

Here in California
playing in my garden
riding my bike
country sights
loving nature
loving kindness
learning to be
loving myself
learning to feel

Our last visit
I call her Mom
yet don’t feel the connection
her Earth suit is so familiar
programmed to love her
TV Oprah was more of a mom

she’s hopeless and she’s ill
she’s dying and we both know it
her skin grey and waxy
yet I half wonder if she’s acting yet again
her final sympathy act

What’s important to convey?
This is likely our last time
I ask if there’s anything I can do for her
polite, like a paid attendant
my inner devastation
anger, grief
hidden inside

I sit on the blue leather ottoman 
directly facing her in her easy chair
she turns her head fully away from me
refusing to look me eye to eye
refusing me 
was it guilt? 

that’s what our so called connection looked like
that final day I saw my Mom

the epitome of our entire mother daughter relationship
she turned away 

Her final betrayal
hanging in the air between us
she protected the abuser 
and threw me under the bus
causing me a 3 1/2 year legal battle with a sociopath brother

just like she threw O under the bus
by not doing a thing when O revealed
that her precious son was a molester of daughters
I remember her words, 
“oh, I thought something would happen if it were true!”

Heavy Swiss cow bell
a family relic 
bending, almost breaking,
the fine wood blinds
so I rehang the bell elsewhere
relieved,
the only thing in the house I could fix

jennifer L