The Power to Forget

I believe in the power to forget

On December 12, 1969
My world changed forever my father was
Murdered i was 11 years old

In the middle of the night I woke to flashing
Lights from a police car a knock at
The door, and I heard my mom answer it
Then I heard a man say: "Marlene
Wil’s been shot"

See, my dad was a cop and as happens all
Too often, he was killed
During a routine procedure
In this case a burglary
Investigation they caught the
Man who killed my father that same
Night he was tried and convicted, sentenced
To die that sentence was commuted in
1973 by the Supreme Court
And to this day he is in prison

I think he is, anyway i don’t know for sure
Because I have tried my very best to
Forget him it was that
Or succumb to the hatred that
Threatened to define my life

For a while I tried forgiveness
Since that is supposed to be liberating
When I say for a
While, I mean for years but I failed there
Are some things that cannot be forgiven
At least for me

Instead, I have slowly, and carefully
Excised his name from my memory now and then
Something will happen I’ll come across a
Story in the paper about him
Being up for parole, or
A family friend will ask
"whatever happened to so-and-so"
And I’ll have to start again to forget
It’s not easy much of our culture
Much of our popular literature
Is based around the theme of
A son avenging the death
Of his father the whole "find the bastard who
Shot my pa" thing you may not notice it
But I do and every time I
Hear about another officer down
Every time Father’s
Day rolls around on the calendar
I think about my dad and I
Think about his death and
I deny the existence of the
Man who killed him

Even now, as I write this
His name tries to emerge
Tries to struggle free from where
I have buried it but it means that I
Don’t have to live with a constant
Aching anger it means that
I don’t have to be trapped in that moment of
History it means that I can continue with my
Life, never forgetting the love I
Have for my father
Or what it meant for him to die
But not being possessed by
A need for vengeance

I believe in the power to forget how many
Old grudges still fuel the fires of
Revenge in this world? How often have more
People had to die because of
A fixation on a memory? How much better
Would things be if we could just
Clean the slate, forget the offenses we’ve
Suffered and the ones we’ve inflicted
And move on?