Sunday Kipling

My favorite uncle came for a visit this week. I gave him an old travel trailer I had stored at Mom's place. We hired a realtor and she got an almost immediate offer which we took so we all headed down for a final clean out. First time I've been back in her house since the last time I saw her alive. I finally cried. The last chapter has been written and I think the reality has come home to her son. Officer Six stood down and I got to grieve for my mother at last. Cathartic and necessary. I feel pretty good today. It's going to be quiet here. A nice, lazy Sunday. Just Lu and me and Angus. I hope this day finds you all feeling good and that you are with someone you love.
Six

The Mother's Son

"Fairy Kist"
From "Limits and Renewals" (1932)

I have a dream -- a dreadful dream --
  A dream that is never done.
I watch a man go out of his mind,
  And he is My Mother's Son.

They pushed him into a Mental Home,
  And that is like the grave:
For they do not let you sleep upstairs,
  And you aren't allowed to shave.

And it was not disease or crime
  Which got him landed there,
But because They laid on My Mother's Son
  More than a man could bear.

What with noise, and fear of death,
  Waking, and wounds and cold,
They filled the Cup for My Mother's Son
  Fuller than it could hold.

They broke his body and his mind
  And yet They made him live,
And They asked more of My Mother's Son
  Than any man could give.

For, just because he had not died,
  Nor been discharged nor sick,
They dragged it out with My Mother's Son
  Longer than he could stick....

And no one knows when he'll get well --
  So, there he'll have to be:
 And, 'spite of the beard in the looking-glass,
   I know that man is me!