A road not taken was
forty years ago –

to trust my mother
hear her advice
fire the therapist
who honed my resentment against her.

If I did, I would have been
In touch with my brothers
married younger
have children
be close to my mom
forty years earlier.

Instead, I listened to a
a therapist who sharpened the
venom I had against my mother.

I envied my therapist’s children.
I wished I lived in her house
craved her solace,
all the sentiments she should have
helped me to channel toward my mother.

It didn’t happen.

I resented my mother for forty years
only to discover later on how wise she had been
all along.
And the therapist died of breast cancer
It was not related.