To My Son on His Birthday

A Mother's Grief

You didn't tell me goodbye, the way your grandma did.
Coming to me to tell me that I would be ok without her.
Waiting for me to get there to tell her it was ok to go.
I told her and she breathed her last and was gone.
But you didn't tell me goodbye.

You didn't give me the chance to try to save you again.
You promised you would hold on and keep trying
and do nothing to take yourself away from us.
But you couldn't hold on and you are gone.
And you didn't tell me goodbye.

I spent twenty-nine years loving you more each day.
I cried ten thousand tears for your troubled soul
I felt your every pain through an invisible umbilical
And today I remember the day you were born
But you didn't tell me goodbye.

I want to scream and cry and beat at the sky
Jump up and down and tear at my hair.
I want to claw at my body in the places
where the empty holes now feverishly lie.
Oh God, I couldn't tell you goodbye.

I was always the one you couldn't do without
and my love for you unconditional.
I love you son, I love you son, I love you son
what will I ever do without you?
I could never have told you goodbye.