Sitting

 

Today I am sitting, 

And suddenly I am my grandmother,

Rocking in her chair,

Her thoughts turned inward

for oh so many many years.

Secrets locked inside,

Stories told that held

Some truth,

Some lies,

Some things must be hid.

To survive.

Five year old me hides and cries. Her nightmares are a jumble of things she doesn't understand or recognise.

Twenty year old me has an epiphany - dod this, I'm off !

Sixty year old me stares in wonderment but also latent fear.

How did I get here, it's both beautiful and disturbing. 

There's something lurking.

Cold hands of stone, 

They rest alone

with all the sorrows they have known. 

It's perplexing when one's close family members have all long gone and left behind only snippets of conversation, short stories with misleading details and very few photogrphs, most of which are unannotated. 

I search and search my memories for truths and end up making them up for myself.

The past is a small fragment of something and I want to reconstruct it whole.