Waiting

[AnnC]

I have wanted and waited for a brother for as long as I can remember.

When I was five, I told my friends I had a big brother. But they knew I was making it up.

When I was nine, I told my mother that my two little sisters were cute, but I wanted a brother too. She said she was too old to have more children.

When I was 14, my parents said they were having another baby.

I waited confidently for a brother.

On a cold November night, he came. I adored him, so tiny, so perfect. I helped to take care of him. I held his little hands as he learned to walk. I taught him to count.

When he was three, I went to college.

When he was nine, I got married and moved to the east coast.

When I was 39, I waited for my brother at the Boston airport when he flew from Oregon to visit me before moving to Hawaii.

When I was 42, I flew to Hawaii to go to his wedding and dance.

Sadly, like me, he ended up getting divorced. I waited for my brother in Seattle, where I had moved. He came and lived with me for a couple of months as he started his new job.

We talked and laughed, went out to eat and bought a kitten.

He changed jobs a few years later and moved near our mother in Oregon.

On holidays I went to my parents' house and waited for my brother. He always came.

He watched over my mother after my father died.

Last August, I went to my mother's and waited for my brother to bring a U-Haul and move some furniture for us.

He did not come.

The police came and told us about his car hitting a pole at 60 mph. They talked about the car bursting into flames.

My family cried together all weekend, and then I went home and waited for my brother. A few days later, the funeral home called, so I went to pick up his ashes. I kept him at my home for a month until it was time to take him to Oregon for the service. We put his urn next to my father's in a mausoleum where four generations of my family are laid to rest.

Now I am 60, and I could sit and wait for my brother. But he will never come again.

[AnnC]

It's not really a poem, I hope it's ok to post here.

[MartyT]

Oh Ann, of course it's okay to post your piece here ~ and it surely reads like poetry to me! Please know that your beautiful writing touches my heart and brings me to tears. ♥

[mfh]

I have read your poem twice and can almost feel you waiting and waiting....thank you for sharing your pain and journey with everyone here including me. It is very powerful and real.

Peace to your heart,

Mary

[AnnC]

Thanks for reading it. Yesterday I started crying and have not stopped since and am crying as I post this. My "poem" just came to me and needed to be expressed.

I have a final verse running through my head too:

I wait for my niece. I wait for her Facebook posts, her photos and jokes, her friends, her likes, her teenage dreams.

She has long blonde hair and her father's blue eyes, my brother's eyes.

I wait for her texts and her phone calls when we laugh and talk and she shares her life.

I wait for next year when my sisters, my mother and I will fly to Hawaii where my niece was born and raised to see her graduate from high school, because my brother cannot be there.

I wait for next year when she will come to the mainland to go to college.

I wait and I know she will come.

I know somewhere my brother is smiling.

I know he waits for me, when it is eventually my time, and then I will come to him.

[enna]

Hi Ann,

The first part of your poem is very beautiful. I could feel your journey through this pain. I like your last verse. It is full of anticipation as you wait.

I pray that your neice does come to the mainland next year. I believe that your brother is smiling. Thank you for sharing. Anne

[AnnC]

Thanks, Anne.