Somewhere there’s a table

Sitting empty

The one I thought that one day

Would be ours

Mom, Dad, Jess and Me

A reunited family

One last meal to put the past to bed

 

Reminiscing the good times

Those precious few we had

And laughing now about the bad

Mom and her new husband, Dad and his new wife

Each now finally happy

For the third act of their life

All of us at peace

With those years at 86

What seemed so awful then

Having now led us to this

 

Somewhere there’s a table

Sitting empty

The one I thought that one day

Would be ours

Mom, Dad, Jess and Me

A reunited family

One last meal to put the past to bed

 

The one we missed the chance to fill

Because we chose not to forgive

Quick enough for them to live

To see the day time healed our pain

Each year a softening

Of a disappearing stain

Where we could reconcile and finally break bread

Because grudges seem so pointless 

When the ones you hate are dead

 

Somewhere there’s a table

Sitting empty

The one I thought one day

Would be ours

 

Mom, Dad, Jess and Me

A reunited family

Having one last meal to put the past behind us

 

But instead I have a hole

Where a mom and dad should be

A half-sister in a drawer

And a step-dad overseas

Two phone-calls and two funerals

And a pair of eulogies

Two sets of ashes that I’ve scattered

Two premature obituaries

An empty table waiting

For a meal that will never be

And an 86 tattoo

For all the memories

 

From when we lived

For all those years at 86

That new chapter that never quite turned the page

From when we lived

For all those years at 86

Til the cracks just could not be contained