The Andrew Poems

This week a business envelope showed up for me with my name scrawled in pencil and circled to draw attention to it. Inside I found a book. They are the poems of a woman, a mother who's five year old boy drowned. A friend told me of the book once and thoughts of finding it one day float in the back of my mind. Now, here it is in my hands. Knowing the content I have let the envelope be shuffled here and there around the house alighting on the ever changing stacks of this and that in my life.

But tonight I am sad. With the kids tucked in bed I pick up my stranger's gift who must understand more than most. I crack open the pages not knowing how much I can bear to read. The first poem opens the floodgate of tears touching the rawest place inside of me. I can physically feel how much it hurts. I want to close the book but I know I won't. I read every poem. To read them is agonizing, but it is the most honest place I can be.

When I finish, I shake with weeping. I hush my sobs not wanting my husband to hear. I do not want to be held by him. I just want to cry for Andrew who left too soon and for my own Sully and for the lost children of the heartbroken mothers who have written me. I catch a glimpse of the author's photograph in the back and stare at her face, the face of a mother who knows the deepest of pain. I read details of her life and find that we drive the same streets, probably pass each other on the same bridges in this city we both call home. I'm overwhelmed with the irrational desire to find her and throw myself in her arms.