In her very beautiful poem “Flare” , from The Leaf And The Cloud, Mary Oliver writes about her mother:

“my mother, alas, alas, did not always love her life, heavier than iron it was, as she carried it in her arms, from room to room, oh, unforgettable!

And her father, who was, she wrote:

“a demon of frustrated dreams, was a breaker of trust, was a poor, thin boy with bad luck. He followed God, there being no one else he could talk to.”

And then, she wrote:

It is not a lack of love, nor lack of sorrow. 

But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry.

I give them – one, two, three, four – the kiss of courtesy, of sweet thanks, of anger, of good luck in the deep earth.

May they sleep well. May they soften.

But I will not give them the kiss of complicity.

I will not give them the responsibility for my life.

How beautiful these words, how often I have turned to them for comfort and soothing and  inspiration.

My mother did not always love her life either, and she carried that burning seed with her wherever she went.

My father never gloried in children he could love, and he could never really hide it or dance around it. He was ashamed. He followed the needy people who lived far away, and  tried to help them, there was no one in the house he could talk to, and so, he was never home.

Like so many people with broken parents and shattered families, i have learned to soften, I wish the same for them in their graves. I have gone to them in peace and introduced them to Maria and said I love you and forgive you,  it turned out well, I was happy, I found love, something neither of them ever could, and I had come to understand, as older people do, that they meant no harm, and did the best they could for as long as they could.

But I would not carry around the iron thing in my heart, I told them that.

My hardest and greatest lesson in my recent life has been to learn to take responsibility for my own life, it is the life I chose, and no one is responsible for it but me. For so many years, I gave it away, piece by piece,  I blamed my troubled life on everyone I knew.

My head was filled with rage and resentment, look what they had done to me.

My mother and father are long in the grave, and I with them peace and compassion, I no longer look to others for the failures and sorrows of my life.

It was not until a few years ago that i refused to give others the kiss of complicity, and turned my life over to them to blame. I am responsible for me, and always, and do you know the strangest thing about that?

it was when I took back the responsibility for my life that I  began to find fulfillment and meaning and happiness.  I am good at taking responsibility for me. I do it well.

Happiness is not about feeling good all the time, we all feel good and bad, just as we come to learn life and death.

Happiness is about living my life, putting my lips to the world, speaking my truth.  No one can take my words from me or put their words in my mouth.

The voice of a child crying out from the mouth of a grown man is a sadness and a disappointment.

I can no longer bear to hear the rationalizing and excuses and finger-pointing and denial that comes out of grown men and women trying to explain to themselves and others why the lost their lives, gave them away to others, hid from the awful and glorious responsibility of having and living the lives they choose every day of their existence.

I will no longer give my life away to anyone, not even for a single moment of a single day. The days and weeks and months fly by so fast, I will not be standing there at the end of  days looking back in regret.

Don’t cry because it’s over, said Dr. Seuss, cry because it happened.

When a grown man or woman tells me their lives are a misery and a failure, I ask them, sometimes in my head, sometimes out loud:

So tell me: 

What will engage you?

Do you carry around the iron thing?

What will open the locked doors of your consciousness?

What will give you hope and promise?

Like a lover at first blush.

And why are you not out knocking down every door to find what you need?

I will not give anyone the responsibility for my life.

I will not ever pity those who do.