In Such Circumstances – NaPoWriMo 2017, day nineteen – prompt: myth

In Such Circumstances

 .

The myth of her childhood;

for she thought of herself

as an only child. With

her foster father she lived

in a small Scottish Croft.

There was the sad loss

of her foster mother

when she was only six.

.

Then later, he remarried; step-sisters

with whom my mother never

was close. In time she moved

(or was moved) on, leaving behind

those happy times with a man who

had been left bereft.  But did she

know who she truly was?

.

It took years to unravel. It took

genealogy to uncover the mysteries

and the myths. Who was this woman,

her birth mother? Did my Mother know

she had emigrated to Boston? That was

not the first mystery solved. Though,

the eldest, my mother was one of many

born to this woman: and she carried

the same name at the time of her birth.

.

Many, were the women, who

emigrated to the colonies; and

who left behind them the myths

and the mysteries surrounding

their families.

.

We found the photographs of the man

who married the sweet-faced woman

I might have called Grandma, had

we ever been told;  that man who

took them to Boston. I look at the photos

of a kind foster father, and then at the

other man. And, to use a catch phrase,

I think my mother got the best end

of the deal. Though it is no myth, life

was difficult back then. I would be

given to myths in such circumstances.

 

Benita H. Kape © 19.4.2017

The prompt was to have been a creation myth. Would still like to do one. My interpretation of myth is a little stretched in the above poem.

 

My mother’s mother. Her passport photo