I saw you in a dream,
many times it would seem.
You were no longer here.
I felt anger, I felt fear.
You were wearing a hospital gown.
Just like the one that you wore,
On that day you swallowed all your pills down.
so many years before.
There were iv tubes covering your arms.
They were leaking blood out like a siv.
You came to pick me up in your mustang.
just like you did when you were alive.
We got in the car, but something was strange.
Your face was blue and oxygen deprived.
You still had that hole in your neck.
You tried to speak, but no words would come out.
On your face, I could see your regret.
I didn't understand what this was all about.
I would have been scared out of my mind,
if you were still here on earth.
Since you went and left me behind.
I had to take it for what it was worth.
At least I got to see you again,
every night for years in my dreams.
I want you to know, I stayed with you till the very end.
I was always on your team.
To this very day, I still don't understand,
why it had to be this way.
but I'm doing the best I can.
Or maybe I'm really not.
My life has been an enormous mess.
I was tired of always feeling distraught.
I found that drugs worked the best.
To take away these feelings I've got.
And I'm sure you know the rest.
I ended up just like you.
it's all I ever wanted to be.
Did you even think this through?
Did you stop to think of me?
I stopped and walked a mile in your shoes.
Just trying to get to know who you are.
Like Father like son, is so true.
It didn't get me very far.
So it's time for me to let you go.
I cannot risk carrying on this tradition.
I've got a son now, I'm sure you know.
And I'm on a different mission.
I want him to be everything I'm not,
I'm gonna be everything you never were to me.
I'm not gonna follow in your footsteps.
So it's time I set you free.
All these years I've been holding on with all my might.
look at what it's done to me.
Right now I am not the man,
that I want my son to see.
So please go rest in peace if you can.
It's time for me to end this chapter.
It's time for you to go.
I'm putting an end to this disaster.
It's time for me to grow.
I owe it to my son to be,
everything he needs.
So I'm planting a new garden,
and cleaning out the weeds.
In my heart you will always stay.
And I know we will meet again some day.
I forgive you, so now please go in peace.
Cause I've got a little boy to teach.
it's time for me to be the man I need to be.
So I can fulfill my destiny.
And give my son the best of me.






© James L. Babcock Jr.