The Family Foundation

I wake up in the morning to a creak

Then a pop, a low pitched moaning 

That comes as quickly as it stops.

When I go to ask my mother she says 

The foundation is settling 

You’d think after 22 years it would be settled.

Done changing, done daring to shift

However every time I turn around I’m forced to notice it. 

Cracks in our foundation

Boundless imperfections 

Relentless expectation.

The wall that I share with my sister has bricks, steadfast, a little ware but that’s par for the course. Any cracks have been filled with mortar and understanding, with love and remorse.

The retaining wall I share with my mother is holding back years of tears and misunderstanding. Years of grief and resentment. It’s built well and to last with love and admiration, but when it cracks the flood begins and widens our separation. So we spackle and we fill and we paint over hurt feelings. Scars and deep memories go back to receding. 

A partition wall separates me and my brother, a thin veil so frail we tiptoe around each other. Enough to see each other but never too much, just enough to love each other and have that speak for us.

The wall with my father is as sturdy as an oak, it gives me splinters often times unprovoked. The color is fading and it could desperately use a new coat, but I’m grateful for the kind feelings it evokes.

There’s a demolished wall somewhere, I’ve covered that one up, an eyesore with no door, an emptiness that swallows me up. If I get too close to the rubble I feel my body start to change. My head swirls and my mouth is dry as I prod at this unspeakable pain. Scar tissue from between my legs and around my neck. The sting in my throat and the heat that’s in my ears, you think I’d be rid of it after all these many years.

These cracks in the foundation, these walls as they are, create a home inside my heart—a home for my family amongst friends.

For my family, my love deepens, and I remain willing to bend.

For my family, I can spackle and repair, I can listen to a moan, a crack, or a pop here and there.

For my family, I can love them—proudly, even when I’m scared