Poetry: Deepest Wound

I have been feeling some physical symptoms come up in my body the last few days which is not unusual surrounding the anniversary of my dad's death. Tomorrow will be four years since his passing from stage four pancreatic cancer.

My dad was one of the strongest people I knew and I felt like he was invincible, we all did. So it was a shock to the system to find out he had cancer, that it was inoperable and then to watch him waste away four months from receiving the diagnosis.

Even as I'm writing this, I'm realizing the significance of the number Four in all of this. I have been wondering why the fourth anniversary feels harder than all of the rest so far.

It's interesting how numbers and numerology has been popping more prevalently into my life in the last few weeks. I've always had a relationship with numbers and even as a small child would watch for numbers as signs and as wish grantors just like the stars.

Anyway, yesterday I did a meditation and in the middle of it, I had a realization of some anger that was coming up for me surrounding his death so I wrote it out as a poem. It's not as smooth as I usually prefer but it's still raw and meaningful to me.

Deepest Wound
by Tatiana Wyand
4/18/22

How can you be gone
My mind doesn't realize
What my heart knows to be real
No more bear hugs
No more laughter
No more joy beaming from your eyes

It's been four years
Since I've held your hand
Since I've heard your laugh

The grief of loosing you
Keeps coming up inside
When I least expect it
When I'd rather hide

I didn't have much of you
When I was young and was a child
I knew you loved me
I knew you felt pride

But you weren't around much
Too busy to just sit and spend time

They say I have abandonment issues
But I didn't ever mind
Until this very moment
When I realized you leaving this world
Opened the deepest wound
The deepest sense of abandonment of all time

You were supposed to stay
To be responsible for caring for
The person who needed you
Who needed you the most

Now she needs me
Needs from me in a way
In a way I don't know how to sustain
The broken leading the broken
The drowning saving the drowning

You were supposed to stay this time
You weren't supposed to run away

How dare your body fail you
How dare your body fail us

This was your time to make up for
All the time you were too busy before

The ultimate abandonment
In death four years ago
Now I'm left to pick up the pieces
Shaking my head over and over
This cannot be life
This cannot be real

I want to forgive you
For the biggest betrayal
But I need you, daddy
I miss you so deeply

Help me pick up the pieces
Help me heal this wound
I still feel you near me
Can still hear your words
"I love you, darling" in your funny country drawl

My heart still swells whenever I hear you
And despite the pain and anger
In my mind I still run to you
Feel your arms wrap around me
And I sigh
Daddy,
I love you as well.

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