Without You

I have been with my husband for seven years now and it has not been easy. When we first got together, we were both shattered inside, but we didn't know it. Instead of facing the brokenness within ourselves, we took it out on each other. 

The first four years were like war years with a brief lulls of peace in between. But we kept trying. And then, three years ago, real peace kicked in. The past began to fall away. And we saw the face of true love, in one another. 

Now, I know I would not want to live without him. I know that this man in my life gives me so much contentment. Without him, I often was a "sad song," but with him, life is exciting! 



Without You by Slidely Slideshow

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Two Mothers

George Lane (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) via Flickr

Two mothers
One son.

One weeping,
One won.

Two families
One child

No contact,
Forms filed.

Two last names,
One blood.

The tears
Cause a flood.

Two mothers
Both love
The small boy
From above.

An angel
He sits
Watching life
Through the slits.

One mother
Sits all alone,
No one to call,
No one to phone.

Her baby is gone,
Oh where could he be,
Will he ever come home,
Will he ever know me?

Two mothers
One son,
Both love him so.

Two mothers,
One son,
But he doesn't know.

He loves his mother,
The one that he knows,
She holds him close,
He knows no other.

She holds him and cries,
For she knows he is sad.
She doesn't know why,
But she knows it is bad.

She's been given this child
To clothe and to feed,
But she doesn't know
About the terrible deed.

When a small child was taken
Away from its Mom,
"To help her," they said,
"Til better times come.

"We'll watch him,
We'll keep him,
Til you get alright.

And then
Give him back,
When your burden is light."

So she gave him away,
With the promise they made,
Just a wee bit of help,
A tiny small break,

And in a short time,
She asked for her son,
But the people had taken him,
And gone on the run.

They gave him away,
But they had no right,
They named him again,
And the mother did fight.

But the mother,
She lost
And her son
Was the cost.

Two mothers
One son
Both love him so.

Two mothers
One son
But she didn't know.

The mother who got him
Thought he wasn't wanted,
She never knew
Why he was so haunted.

She thought he was left,
That's she was told,
How would she know,
That he had been stolen?

Two mothers
One son.
But nobody won.

In 1964, my husband was taken from his mother by the child welfare authorities for what was supposed to be a short, temporary period. She trusted them, needing the help, with several other children also in tow. He was never given back and was adopted two years later into a Caucasian family who loved him, but never knew that his birth mother had not agreed to the adoption.

My husband loves his adoptive family, and they love him very much. He has also re-united with his  blood family, who also love him. That said, however, the scars are still there for him. He was torn from his mother at the age of six weeks, and placed in foster care, where he endured abuse. By the time he was adopted two years later, he already had great difficulty in forming attachments to others.

My husband was part of a historical event called the 60's Scoop -- when thousands of babies in Canada were taken from First Nations mothers, and handed over to non-First Nations mothers. This series of poems is my gift to him -- to share his story -- and to help us understand what he and thousands of  others went through.

My husband was a stranger

My husband
Was a stranger
To his kin:
Ripped from the resting bosom
Of his desperate mother,
And transported

To another town,
Where housewives
Needing pin money
Took in Indian babies,
Poor things.

My husband
Was adopted,
Grafted in,
Accepted
By another family,
A mother saw
His desperate face
And could not
Look away.

He sat among them
Slightly darker,
A little brother
Added on
Afterthought
A broken piece
Forced to fit.

This son
Of Others
Became Theirs
And he was never told
Why or where the place
He came from,
He was there,
And that was all.

My husband
Grew up that way
A stranger to his kin,
A stranger to his skin.