By Constance Miles, 11/29/20
Bill’s daughter speaks of his trauma.
She tells me his mother had severe
postpartum depression after he was
born. She was sent to a sanatorium,
subjected to shock treatments-
Mama – baby bonding interrupted,
he was sent to live with an aunt.
A year later, returning to his mother,
he saw her with another baby in her
arms. He asked, “Mama, why don’t
you ever hold me? His mother’s arms
were full of someone else. For Bill
an emptiness that engulfed him.
Seventy years later, as I enter the
room where he has died, in the arms
of his daughter, I see two signs,
his words from two days ago, when
he was still lucid. “You don’t need to
talk”,in big letters) and, in smaller
ones, “But you can”. the sign hanging
from his hospital bed says, “JUST HOLD ME”.