While faith through struggles is a strong theme through By the Pond, my mother (though not mentioned much until the epilogue) would be the inspiration for the the theme of the book as a whole. Pictured to the right are my parents on their wedding day in the 1950s. Mom was a diagnosed schizophrenic. After my dad’s death when I was 6, my sister and I did not live with her. My dad’s mother (Gramma Peggy) had us and went to court 7 times and was finally given custody of us when I was seven. However, Mom would call and talk to me on the phone. Sometimes she was fine but others not so much. I know I was afraid of her, but I cannot remember all the reasons why. She could be very angry and violent. So, she would call and sometimes say things no child should hear. One day when I was 10, I yelled at her and hung-up the phone. She died in a nursing home 2004. As an adult I would go visit her and take her out when possible, but I could never really help her. When my struggles in the 90s came along, (though different than hers) I realized how frightening it must have for her to not have control of her thoughts and actions. My poetry helped me maintain that control and care for my children. My children never knew I struggled with anything until they became adults and I began to share it with them. My hope is that I can help others see there are positive and constructive ways to work through difficult times. Poetry is not everyone’s path to healing or moving forward (not all wounds completely heal), but there are a wealth of ways – as many ways as there are people. The hard part is that sometimes an artist just needs to say it and get it out. It can be unsettling to the audience. It can seem outrageous. I now call those poems of mine “poetic fiction.”
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