A Poem about Healing

Trauma & Healing

Jun 26

Someone reached out to share a poem that captures the work he is doing to heal from trauma. I asked to share it because it beautifully captures something important about the healing journey: seeing the legacy of trauma, telling its story in its poignant essence, and letting the story blossom into compassionate love for self and other. I hope it illuminates for others their own journey home…

Dear Jacob,

Your presence on podcasts and on youtube has inspired me to share the following 'processing' of mine.

###
(Not) A Poem About Trauma

I just realised,
in the presence of heartbreaking pain and sorrow,
that I am already a parent of many,
without ever having fathered a child.

A parent who never asked to be one,
a parent without having a choice,
letting go of himself for dear life.

I became this parent when I was born,
and I became a parent growing up,
for I had to take care of two abandoned children -
my mothers and fathers secret shadows.

My father,
who had to live on as an eleven year old boy
after the suicide of his mother.
His own father
traumatised
from war and imprisonment.

He lived through
the ultimate abandonment from his parents.

And when he finally held me in his arms,
an innocent newborn baby,
he finally saw -
that all beings are fully worthy
of being loved,
kept safe and cared for.

It was too painful for him to witness,
for it would remind him of the love he would have needed and deserved.

So he did the only thing he had ever learned to do with pain -
he abandoned me,
passing on his broken heart and fear,
for me to keep.

My mother,
who stayed with me the best way she could,
was abandoned, too.

She lost her fiancé through a car accident at Christmas,
ten years before my birth,
ever afraid of losing someone she deeply cared for again.

Her own parents could not fully see her,
nurture her,
the way she needed.

So she kept this pain,
the sorrow of loss,
the dreadful feeling of loneliness,
and the fear of losing again,
inside her, hiding it the best way she could.

I grew to comfort her,
reassuring through presence, words and deeds,
that she would never lose me.

Both my grandparents grew and lived -
through the terrors of war,
the loss of humanity,
as children themselves.

Only now I begin to see
these children in me,
so worthy of love,
yet so fearful of neglect.

Carrying them all my life,
I would never abandon them,
sensing their hidden pains and yearnings.

Now, I continue to grow
until I can be present
with their neglected parts,
inside of me,
so that I can finally become -
whole.

A caring being for myself,
in touch with their pain,
yet finally,
aware
of the extent and boundaries of my own self,
my own wounds, feelings and needs,
as worthy as theirs.

To build a future that honours its roots,
to build a future with love and compassion,
slowly learning that pain and joy are one.

To build a future -
caring for all children,
responsible for my own.

May I learn to become this parent.
###