an old writer and his words

  • AND NOT A PRINCE

    I suppose I could sit hereand emulate Hamlet, questionexistence, lose myself in a bookand when asked what I was readingreply words, words, words untilmy questioner doubted my sanity.But my father is gone, the biologicalone and both adopted onesfor bad measure, and so areboth mothers, so the key relationshipin that play has no underpinning in mine.And…

    Lou Faber

  • HAGAR’S SON

    Did you so fear being Hagarthat you deemed me Esau, stolemy birthright, my name, my pastand cast me off into a wilderness?I knew nothing of this, your secrettaken with you to the grave as you wished.Did you consider that I might beIshmael, never knowing my father,adopted into a culture that wouldnever be mine, a child…

    Lou Faber

  • READING PAUL MULDOON

    Reading Paul Muldoon this afternoonI thought of you for no reason.It wasn’t your birthday, notthat you celebrate them where you are,nor the anniversary of the day you died.And it certainly was not becauseI was reading about Ireland sinceI never imagined I had Irish blood, andyou never went there, and when I didI didn’t know you…

    Lou Faber

  • GONE STILL

    Gone21 yearsstill lookingas you did81 years agoin the Morris HarveyCollege yearbookand that is how,and only how,you will everlook to memother. Thatand the tombstoneon which I criedthree years agowhen we metfor the first time.

    Lou Faber

  • MISSED MEETING

    On Saturday it will be21 years since I missedthe last chance to meet my mother.If this seems strange to youimagine how it is for me, how itit is to have your mother dieat 82 and you now 70saying you never got to meet.You’ve guessed correctly that Iam an adoptee, but did you knowI waited so…

    Lou Faber

  • ANTIQUEING

    Mother was an inveterate attendeeat flea markets and Goodwill storesand I would accompany her.She had a knack for antiques, wouldrummage for stereopticon slides,player piano rolls and anything elseshe thought belonged in the family roomshe had taken back to the late 19th century.She scouted the stalls, the darkcorners where Goodwill put thingsthey didn’t think would sell,…

    Lou Faber

  • THE EASE OF FORGETTING

    I have little memory of the manwho was my first adoptive fatherand none of his funeral, two-year-olds,my mother said, should notknow of death at that age.Nor did I attend my grandmother’s,she the mother of my second adoptive fatherbecause 12-year-old shouldn’thave the memory of funerals,according to my mother.I did attend her mother’s funeral,had to because I…

    Lou Faber

  • A FAREWELL VISIT

    My mother no longer visits mein my dreams, actuallyneither does for I’ve had two,the advantage or is itdisadvantage of the adoptee.None of my three fathersever paid a postmortem visit.It complicates things when allI know of my birth mother isfrom a college yearbook photo,but that is how she looked in thosefew visits after I discovered her.The…

    Lou Faber

  • MOTHERS’ DAY

    This is the day I am supposedto honor my motherbut I am torn as to which motherI should pay tribute, or is itboth or possibly neither.One carried me, bore meinto life and departed,for my good, for hers andthe grave has sworn her to silence.Is it the woman whoadopted me, I her onlyuntil her new husbandgave…

    Lou Faber

  • RECENT MEMORIES

    Looking through your wedding albumtwenty years after a midlife marriageyou are quickly awash in emotions.There is the joy of the moment, magnifiedduring the succeeding years, andthe rekindled memories of peopleand moments of the day forgottenor lost in the tumult that is attendanton any wedding, first or second.But there is a deep sadness as well,at those…

    Lou Faber