AMEN.....EVERRYONE HAS A STORY......ITS WHEN ANOTHER TAKES TIME TO REALY LISTEN IS WHEN THE WOUNDS WILL HEAL AND WE FEEL FULLY HUMAN.....

Sparky, thank you for dropping by and commenting...

I posted this in a topic of it's own but decided it should be a continuation of this topic also.

Flower Beds

There was this eighty year old housewife
with the most beautiful flower beds,
well groomed, well cared for, no doubt
someone put time and energy planning
and caring for the beautiful flower beds.

There came a time when her husband
of sixty years was diagnosed with cancer
and it was decided that she would care for
him at home because he would have it
no other way, no nursing home for him!

That is when I had a chance to listen to her story
behind those closed doors of her home.
All was not as it appeared, to those passing by.
Folks had no idea of the abuse she had to endure
through those sixty years of marriage.

She told of verbal, physical, and emotional
abuse, of the times he would get up
from the dining table and turn it over just
because the food wasn't salted to his liking,
or a comment made not to his way of thinking.

All their family, friends and neighbors
helped them celebrate sixty years of marriage,
with great escalation and admiration.
Their grown children knew about the abuse
behind closed doors but it was the family secret.

I listened, as I often did to the tales folks
kept behind closed doors. When asked, "how
she managed through the years." She pointed
to her flower bed, straightened her back, and
said, "see those flower beds, that is where I
spent my time when life got tough!"

Hard to imagine but when she was a young wife
women had hardly any rights, a man's home
including his wife and children were his property.
He was the law inside his home. She had no where to turn,
but to God and her' flower beds!

-My employment of twenty-five years took me behind closed doors, it is behind those closed doors that people will tell you their personal stories. It is where they feel safe, it is their home, that is where you will find their heart and soul. I have a great deal of compassion for folks so I was good at what I did. And, their stories went no farther, their stories stayed with me, they could trust me. My personal story is still untold, perhaps, one day someone will sit down beside me in my home where I feel safe and listen to my story. Trusting people no longer comes easy for me, I've seen too much during my life time working in public service.

Very nice!

Funny how a beautiful house can catch your eye...or a really attractive person...only to find out what goes on inside is possibly your worst nightmare...
p.s.... Really like the story of the flower beds...reminds me of an older woman who let me have a flower for my mom...only on Mondays on my way home from school...one day she had a huge black eye...she said she fell down...but when she would give me that flower she would always be very quiet...looking behind her..then quickly get back to her flower bed...sad to think what may have been

I like the shite out of both entries here, Mo. Loved Flower Beds. Both are duly descriptive and well written.

tommo

Thank you one and all;

I would like to write now that I have the time but really struggle with what to write. But I'm not letting that discourage me, I start composing my thoughts before I even open my eyes of a morning, then I sit down at the computer for three or four hours trying to be creative.

Tommy, your poetry is creative and inspirational, but it was the dream "She had Brown Hair" that really got my creative juices aroused.

Real people, and how they struggle to get through the day; now that I can relate to!

Awesome!!!!!