Tuesday October 12, 2021; 3:00 PM EDT
- I came across a draft of a poem that I don't remember writing, but it's in a form I use and it's about the child our next door neighbors adopted in maybe 1970.#
- Her parents and her siblings were killed in a car crash. She survived with broken bones and scars. She was young enough that the older folks hoped that eventually she might not remember the worst of this. Her aunt and uncle adopted her, and after the hospital she came to live with them and her young cousins of similar age, next door to us.#
- She had a cast on a broken arm, I recall, and some stitches or plastic surgery healing on her face, maybe also arm or leg, I'm not sure.#
- She was very quiet at first, as you'd guess. Traumatized, slow to emerge as a playful child again. In my memory, the healing of her scars proceeded at the same slow pace as the full return of her smile. #
- I can't tell you the last time I remembered her. She'd be in her fifties now. Reading the old poem, I hoped she had healed and healed. #