Age of Wonder/Age of Horror

In these binary years

I suppose the greatest thing

You could say about someone 

Is that you don’t know

Where they stand;

You might think you do

But you could be wrong.

And so this is a note

In praise

Of ambiguity.

***

Alas,

This is also

A notice

Of some personal alarm.

I have been thinking 

These past few days

Of granting my sister,

Who views me as an albatross 

Except when she doesn’t,

What she has suggested

Quite strongly 

In the past,

What she so fondly desires

Which is to make

An informal exit

From the life

Of the most important person 

In my life.

Which is to say

My niece.

***

One year ago

Yesterday

I saw her in person

For the last time.

This is pandemic time

And so time is relative

For everyone 

But I take this one personally.

Five years and six months ago

She was born.

Five years and four months ago

I spent my first week with her.

Five years and three months ago

I spent two months watching her all day.

Four years and four months ago

I began watching her for a whole year.

Three years and four months ago

That age of wonder ended.

Three years and two months ago

An age of horror began.

One year and six months ago

I had to say goodbye.

One year and one day ago

I got to say hello

And goodbye

On the same day.

And now it is today

And I wonder

If I’m not doing myself 

More harm than good

Pretending that I can keep this up

And not go mad.

She is young enough

To forget me.

She has a family,

Even a baby brother

Born last year.

She does not need me.

She may still delight

At the thought of me

Now,

Glow in effervescent seconds

During video chats.

Well.

I made a mistake this year.

I miscalculated.

I tend to do this.

Bask in an illusion

And perhaps wallow

In equal delusion,

Afterward,

When it seems to shatter.

I wrote something 

For her,

As I have every Christmas.

I sent it around

To family,

And received silence

In return.

My Christmas 

Was a silent night.

Except this one 

Was not hope.

It was

Despair.

So now

I wonder

If I should be,

As the world

Seems so intent 

To be,

Binary.

 

To switch off.

To quit trying

To balance

The wonder

And the horror.

And to let

My niece

Live her life

Without me.

***

The fraught ambiguity

Remains

That in the great span of years to come,

This might not matter.

She might not forget me.

She might

And she might not.

Or,

When she is older

She might rediscover me.

Or, as anyone who

Watches a child grow

Must do,

Glimpse her works

From a distance

And be content 

With that.

***

I am not the first one

And I will not be the last,

To be asked,

Or worse yet,

To ask myself 

To leave a child’s life

Early.

Alas.

Were that the world

Did not accept such cruelty.

Such is life.