Once Again To the Breach!

There, she's done it again. Your anxiously
lonely and obsessed, impetuous daughter
has chosen unwisely, and in your ears,
piercing your torn heart comes the
unleashing of the conflicted anguish. Out
it comes in an unending steam of emotional
bile against yet another man whose cavalier
approach to partnership in life has managed
to devastate expectations; are you surprised?

A brief nod to self-reproach as she moans
that her generous spirit and open heart
conspired yet again to leave her gasping in
frustrated disbelief. You cannot interject to
remind her of the imperious rejection of your
cautious advice, for now is not the time and in
fact there never will be a time. You are there, a
soft wall of compassion, absorbing her grief.

Note to self: you will shop for a luxurious set
of warm flannel queen-size sheets for your once-
again bereft child, hardly knowing where to turn
for the comfort of a life companion once again
denied her. It is a gesture the absurdity of which
will pass beyond her, and just as well, given the
circumstances. Those circumstances being nothing
you may now amend, after all those years.

Did you raise her so ineptly, arm her so sadly
insufficiently to recognize quality from liability?
Fail to imbue her with an acute awareness of her
own value and discerning discrimination well used?
Were those life lessons you imparted by word and
in deed so shallow and redundant? She is approaching
menopause. When does personal passage to life's
afflictions become one's rightful ownership?