Mom, it is ten years but I have never forgotten you, and I never will!

Mom, you were 20 years of age in this photo, taken out of school by your father to marry a man you never met. His wife was deceased and he had five children, the youngest six months, the oldest seven years – 4 girls and 1 – boy. As you told me months before your death that the “boy” you did not bring into this world loved you more than any of the six children that you brought into the world. I know you were sad when your three sons (my brothers) died at the tender ages of 26, 34 and 46.

Mom, I did not really know you and just when I was getting to learn about you; who you were, what you thought, the disappointments in your life with hardships that were incomprehensible, you left. For ten years to date, O, how I wish everyday that you did not leave so abruptly, but God in His Wisdom, always knows best.

The 90 minutes telephone conversation we had one day before you died is etched in my heart and I “know;” it would be there all the days of my life. With all my heart, I do hope you are rejoicing with your three sons and the man you married, whom you did not know but came to love – “My Dad.”

Not bad Mom, a girl just 20 years of age raising five children that came with your marriage and then having six biological children, eleven in total. Mom, I did not realize until after your death, how “our lives,” mine and yours, are parallel in so many ways. I wrote this poem for you, weeks after your passing on February 20, 2001.

I love you Mom,

Sheriff G Ali

MY MOTHER'S SON

TO MY MOM, 1923-2001

My Mom whom I loved, I did not really know
It was destiny, that said, I must go,
I was sent to help others who needed me
That distant journey, my Mom I could not see

So for thirty years, my life was dismayed
God's mysteries, I finally returned to where I played,
In the last days of her sojourner's life
She told me she was my father's loving wife

Her goals and dreams she knew were never met
She assured me, she had no regret,
Her faith in God to go to worlds’ unknown
Was her assurance, she would never be alone

The next journey she knew, would have no tears
With confidence, she said; there were no fears,
So her amazing and most sudden death
Helped me to understand her the best

Though her life is surely over and done
Forever, I say, I love you, I love you, Mom...


by Sheriff G Ali

© Copyright Sheriff G. Ali 2001

Author's Comments:

"MOM, EVEN IN DEATH, I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU SO!"