More Questions Than Answers

You didn’t have to come, but you did.

And what good did it do you?

Did it take away all those years of guilt,

Those years of silence,

Those years when I didn’t know if you were dead or alive?

And now with your Yankee accent

Like someone from a TV show,

No hint of Dublinese left in your speech.

And when you knocked on my door

In the company of Matron

What did you expect?

The fatted calf?

A slap in the chops?

Were you filled with a burning desire

To see your old mother again,

Or was it a duty, an effort

To salve your conscience,

To put things right

Before it was too late?

And when you introduced yourself

With your “Hi”

Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you?

How would I not

When you were and are

Part of me?

And you rattled on and on

About the steps you had taken

To find me here in St. Paul’s,

How Google was a wonder,

Whatever that is.

And I only ten miles from the house

That you were born in,

And the whole country about

Knowing well I was here,

And have been for nearly

Eight years now,

Ever since I caused a small fire

In the kitchen

And my home help Agnes

Got carried away with herself

And informed Dr. Moore.

And the stories you told,

Of a family I have never seen,

And the great things they are doing

All over America.

And I learned for the first time

That I was a grandmother,

Not once but four times over

And soon to be a great grandmother.

And a little present

In a wooden casket,

A necklace your wife bought

No doubt,

But it was truly beautiful.

And you left my room not much more

Than an hour later.

You had things to do,

People to see in London,

Business of course

And very boring, you said,

But had to be done.

And I’m wearing the night blue necklace now

And finger it’s stones every night

Like my Rosary.

You didn’t have to come.

But you did.