She leaned over with a soft smile on her face, and gave her mother a tender embrace,

 And in an instant, the years between them began to melt, like tar on a desert road.

Still the mother stiffened somewhat at her daughters loving and tender touch,

for the burden of the enmity that was between them was almost too much.

Thirty years had passed, and the hurt and harm was still there,

 she had deceived her child and it had been too much for her to bare.

Lies, guilt and tormented shame and a father who took all the blame.

A small life corrupted, a husband in jail, and she living a self imposed hell.

 However, that all seemed to pass, with the warmth of the daughters touch

and the soft words of love and unbridled compassion that she now spoke,

This, and this alone… was enough to tear asunder the walls of guilt

that in thirty years heartache and hating, that she herself had built.

Repent, forgive, and forget, for now it was the same,

for in that short moment as she stood at her husbands fresh dug grave,

She came to full realization; it was she and not the daughter that was to blame.

It was she, that in not wanting to see, who had said to the daughter now by her side.

 "Quickly now, hurry to your room, its time now for daddy's little game."

And like a sheep being led to the slaughter, the daughter acquiesced to this shame.

Turning now to her daughter, and looking her in straight the eye,

 she said "forgive me dear, oh please, please forgive me, before I too die."

 The daughter smiled a little, and brushed the tears from her mothers cheek

 and said "I forgave you long ago"

 and they both began to cry.

 J. Allen Wilson © 2004