Filling the Void

Alone; I used to be saddened by the concept.
I used to see it in my mother’s eyes,
in her tears when she wouldn’t know I’d see her crying.
I would think about her life and how our father left her
abandoned us, me, never to see him or hear his voice.
Mother gave us a picture of him one Christmas
when I was already thirty three.
She tried to share her life with other men
but we were of a different culture and too many of us.
I don’t think they truly cared for her or us
so they, too, abandoned us and I ‘felt’ her being alone.
When I could not have new shirts, pants
or shoes but only ‘used‘ and ‘hand-me-downs
I wouldn’t talk in school and walk home alone.
Later, too soon, I realized an emptiness filled our home
when once we had shared space, laughing and fighting,
singing and crying, now all have gone their own way.
Life has elucidated so, that ‘friends‘ are like leaves in trees,
they come and they go. Should I take this personally?
My lovely wife sometimes loves me, I know my ‘kids’,
Jules and Jaz, our two miniature poodles, do.
I now read prolifically, quite often living vicariously
in the written words of others.
Traveling the world, it would be fun, not just to visit
but to live as ‘Romans do“ and somewhere doing something
selflessly. A replacement to an emptiness, to the feeling of being alone.
Alone, we are all alone, it is ’the reality’!
I am no longer saddened by it,
but accept and understand how to fill the void.