“Ghosts From the Past”

The words & visions are there
inside me.

I must write them down
or not get any rest.

The pain that was suffered
so many years past
comes fleetingly to the surface
if only for a moment.

But once seen
recognized
and understood…

The ghosts of the past retreat
back to the Long Ago.

The Story Behind the Poem Ghosts From The Past:

When I was very young, I had a childhood disease called polio. In those days, when you were a patient in the hospital, they would put you in quarantine (you were in isolation for about two weeks, like solitary confinement. It was almost like you were being punished for something and you didn’t even know you had done anything wrong. You stayed there until they knew that you were not sick with a cold or the flu that the other children might catch. I was in and out of the hospital a number of times from the age of seven until I was about ten or so, because of polio and each time, I spent the first two weeks alone, in isolation. The only people I saw were a few nurses. My parents were not even allowed to visit for those two weeks.

Then, many years later when my son was very young, he needed to have some tests done. If you were from out of town, the hospital would allow a parent to stay with the child. Not in the same room, but in another room. His Mother and I both agreed that I should be the one to stay in the hospital with him, so she could stay home with our daughter, who attended school.

That first night, I had nightmares, as I had to sleep in the same quarantine/isolation room that I had to stay in when I was a child. I knew that it was the very same hospital that I had been in, but was shocked that it was the very same room.

But after that first night, I had faced all of the demons from my childhood and slept peacefully the rest of the entire two weeks.