Wednesday, October 9, 2013

BRINGING IT TOGETHER by DeAnn Louise Daigle



It feels like nothing is ever resolved.
Just when I thought that in knowing
My past more clearly, as in Bud
Actually being my biological father,
Something would be completed.

Rumors seem to have basis in fact –
At least in some fact, if not all.  That
Hearsay, that rumor, that gossip
Repeated to me by my cousin when
We were ten or eleven or nine years old

Had its basis in something, and something
In me knew this, even if what he told me
Was not true.  Yet, why would he have
Bothered to tell me?  He wanted me to
Know.  He felt compelled, on some level

Of his youthful humanity, for whatever
Unfathomable reason, that I should be
Aware of this information.  He believed
It.  And so I lived with his knowledge
Unable to do anything about it or with

It for some four decades when – just
Maybe – I was ready to find out for sure –
And for true –

Bud and I wept on the phone.  It was true.
What Carl had told me that day in the old
Boarding House, which held so many
Memories, so many stories of our roots and
Acadian history – so much of that big story

Of our ancestors – it was there on a warm
Summer’s day in one of the spare bedrooms,
Where who knows who had slept.  On that
Day he told me the rumor he had heard, so
Convincingly, and his cousin James was there

To confirm it.  Yes, it was true, it was very
True.  I have loved you all these years.  Sonorous
Regret in his voice echoes still in my mind.
Bud was my father – but he was not – nor
Would he ever be – my Dad.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

A very difficult story to tell I would imagine yet the narrator did a wonderful job, wandering around the pain, leaving us to feel it.