For today’s prompt, take the phrase “The (blank) Who (blank),” replace the blanks with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: “The Runner Who Walked,” “The Scientist Who Decided to Make a Monster,” “The Poet Who Loved Me,” and/or “The Teacher Who Couldn’t Learn.” If you’d prefer to write about a thing instead of a person, feel free to replace the word “who” with the word “that.” — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest
The optimist who was wrong
“It’s fine! I’m fine; everything’s fine!”
Rader said to me, exasperated,
as I tried to engage him in conversation
in the car after school, in the spring of 10th grade,
regarding my concerns about his mental health.
It was not something he wanted to talk about.
It didn’t seem to help him to hear I was worried.
“We’re struggling, but it’s going to be OK,”
I said to my friend and coach,
after her morning boot camp class
early in summer, as we chatted while we stretched.
Two days later he was gone.
We had done all we could,
gotten him all the help there was.
I thought we would be OK.
I was wrong.
This poem is a darker one. It’s odd, the things that get burned into your memory when an unexpected tragedy explodes your generally neat and tidy life. That very night when Rader died by suicide, I was at a support group meeting. I boasted proudly to my friends there that my husband and I had “successfully raised (our older child — who was 18 and had that week graduated high school) to adulthood.” And we had. But as I was saying it, the worst of all failures was happening back at home. Not that that makes me a failure as a parent. I know I did the best I could. But the irony of it gets me.
I’m still an optimist. It’s how I’m wired. But I have a dark streak now. It’s easier for me to imagine the worst happening. Because now I know it can, and does.