We didn't become the artists
We both aspired to be,
I, but who can paint pictures
With words of you and me

Brightness of your smile - your mark
Through thirty years have lasted.
Your sparkling eyes ever so dark
We two alone in the masses

I wonder from time to time
If you had had a chance,
Would you be still so inclined
For both our first romance.

Your trip was planned, you had to go,
All was final, just one day more.
Plans were changed, a secret sown.
Your mother's darkness, her very core.

Her planned trip was in disguise
A  journey longer, deeper than believed.
As you slept, she gave surprise,
Sounds in the night, her goal achieved.

Brutal truths and words I feared,
An empty school seat there stood
Required the trip be taken with those she loved and reared
What made her take that step or as a mother could?

Though we will never be sure;
Encircling the truth was a curtain.
We'll never know these things obscure
Whether the truth was so certain.

In the spirit, I am sure you all forgave
Her lowest moments she had that day
Here in the temporal, no strength to behave,
Forgetting you or forgiving her I cannot say.