Who are you?

No gray areas in your world

No hard choices, it’s either one or the other

Born with ability to know what is right.

Who are you?

Bent to hide six-foot-two

Not easy disappearance in crowds

Fainting when social graces falter

Vomiting during interviews for jobs you will never do

Who are you, really?

My autistic child

Or a guardian Angel

You cradled your dying great-grandmother

Turning her off a back breaking down in bedsores

And you cried

Soft apologies because you saw her nakedness

Bathing her

And me

In lessons of innocence and authentic love

You changed her diaper

With the strength of gentle acceptance

In a situation we all fear and never choose

Offering us comfort through a language

Many never use.

(Lynette Bat-Abba, May 2009)