Laughs and Lobotomies

You chased the Olympics and blamed the President.

You went to Penn, not Wharton.

Sure, you have so many things.

So many “yes” men and women.

So many awards.

For rowing

For business

For gifts of money and power.

You have a beautiful wife.

You have so many things that others envy.

I don’t envy you.

I know the emptiness they bring.

I know who you were when I was a child.

Strict, but a jokester.

Tortured, but fair.  Generous, welcoming.

I remember the warmth at your home.

The sledding in the winter.  The whole family and how much we loved it.

Did you know you were the only one who gave me a graduation present?  An iPod nano.

I hated Wharton.  If I could give back my degree I would.

You never talked to me.  You don’t even know me.

Did you know I asked to pay from the start but I couldn’t pay the market rate?  I never wanted a handout.  I’m sorry that wasn’t relayed to you.

My health deteriorated so far I struggled to walk up stairs.

Yet I tried to keep up with your demands.

That I paid denied medical bills.  Do you know what those cost?

You can become the leader of the free world.

It won’t make you happy, though maybe you’d be good at it.

It won’t give you peace.

I’m still searching for both.

I would forgive you, before I forgave my own mother.

Because she knew, she knew everything she did, the entire time.

And I still see family.  And we all are human.

And my father listened to her, far too often.

She stole years with him from me, many more than you did.

I remember who I knew 30 years ago.  Please find him again.

We all have our own crosses to bear and our own sins.

But I hope to see again the man I knew, 30 years before, as a small child playing in the snow, with her whole family.