to then my other Mom

You then are the one,
the one I reach back for,
for then the earliest memories.

For the love, and the warmth,
and the need to be loved,

I have no visible memories of these moments,
only shadows of our time together.

You moved away before I was three,
yet still I share the shadows, of the memories.

It is these memories, that make possible,
my love and attachment, to my wife and children.

My first mom was young,
growing still, herself.

Dad was a challenge,
growing still himself.

With dad and my brother, mom had her hands full.
So you stepped up and carried the plate,
for the first three years,
because that is what sisters do.

Then your own life you needed to start.
this now I have come to understand.

But the shadows of the memories,
gave me a place to start,
a base to learn to love.

Through the years,
I tried to get you to see,
that I was your first child.

Mom loved you too.
She had been happy to share her family,
over the years.

Mom having been born,
a year and a half, before, your birth.
Yet you were twins, sharing the same soul.

Thus then, in the end,
you mourned your unborn child,
never seeing the many you raised.

I too have mourned my unborn child,
but I have loved the others.

This then, my daughter's oldest brother.
My wife could have been a single mom
when first we met.

Having been offered this child, by the handmaiden.
He was then offered to another family, to be their joy.

Then came the one who could have been my first son,
but grandpa loved him first.

But then the handmaiden offered us,
our first child, and what a joy she was.

Then 8 years later the second joy.
This then the gift, that filled the hole,
that was not there.

So now both of you are gone,
my first and second moms.

Still, I carry the memories, of you both.
The base of love, built by the second,
and the dance of love with the first.

This then, I use to build a place of love,
for my children, born and unborn.