submitted by Paula Peacock, Longmont, CO

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submitted by Patrick Arion, Colorado Springs, CO

An ancient, anonymous American Indian proverb states: “Good judgement [sic] comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.” This, a “badge” of wisdom, hangs next to a picture of my mother on a wall at home. Since 1999, she has been deceased. Proverbs serve to call to our attention popular, well-known truths or facts. Notably, a proverb tends to summarize a “truth” and as such: “the truth will set you free.” Considerably more important, is the crux of obtaining the truth from its original source.

Previous to my mother’s new life in the everlasting, I was enabled by truth, to convey to her my twenty-year secret. The truths of an unbearable, abusive childhood seemed to “Turn on all the lights down an unseemingly long hallway!” to the extent that she claimed that finally everything that never had seemed to make sense–the dysfunctionality of our family–came home in illumination. As we cried together, I found myself to have summoned up the courage to be the irreplaceable piece to the puzzle, the mystery. Most of my secret she shared with other family members and the “rest” was to be hers; the serenity of wisdom, she took with her upon her death. ‘Tis as if one were writing with years of tears shed free from their own pen, the drama unfolds now as I once told it to my mother nearly ten tears ago. Read more »