A Mother's Lament: Irreparable Damage

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I cannot hate you,

but I hate what you’ve done.

And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able

to forgive you.

Our family is broken now.

And I can’t find the pieces I need

to fix this.

Maybe I can try to glue whatever we had

back together,

but the picture will never look the same.

And I don’t think you understand.

We’re all hurting from a wound

that may never heal.

You cut way too deep and

the pain is way too intense to manage.

You selfishly destroyed your little sister’s peace

and there is no excuse for that,

nor is there an explanation that would make

ANY of this ok.

You helped yourself to something

that was not yours

and you changed the way my baby saw the world

forever.

You detonated a bomb

in her bedroom,

causing the most devastating explosion.

And you burnt our entire home down

in the process.

And I couldn’t have stopped this.

By the time I saw the flames,

it was way too late.

The irreversible damage had been done.

And we can’t rebuild here.

This foundation is no longer safe.

And we’ve all been misplaced,

experiencing our own versions of hell.

Your sister’s nightmares, the worst of all.

And I can’t stop replaying that day.

I can’t stop wondering

how I didn’t know,

how I couldn’t see

what you were capable of…

because I never believed

you’d be capable of any of this.

I carried you,

I birthed you,

I loved you and now

I am forced to mourn the loss of you.

Because I cannot accept

the “new” you.

I refuse.

The person I love would have never done this.

The baby I held in my arms

would have never grown up to be so…

twisted.

And I miss my son.

I really do.

But he died to me on June 17th.

And everyone knows what’s dead is gone

and there’s never any coming back

from that.

Brandy's note: Amber shared this poem in our online SST parent support group. The response from the group was overwhelming; dozens of parents thanked her for putting words to their current or past realities, in full or in part. Our journeys are unique, but we all go through a grieving process. Amber captured common and vital parts of that grief: the loss of the families we dreamed of and thought we had, the torture of watching our children suffer, and the death of the image we held of children we loved and thought we knew. (For those wondering about the significance of the date given, that is the date that Amber discovered her son had assaulted her daughter, 3 years ago. It is almost universal that parents within our group carry instant recall of the date of disclosure and how much time has passed since that moment.)