Do you have people in your life that are difficult to love? Most of us do. Here's a poem written by a well known and prolific author that addresses this common problem. You might not agree with her resolution, but I just love how she expresses it in words.
Another Kind of Love
by Catherine Cookson
Blood is thicker than water,
It's true. But it indicates you should love
Where you hate.
Don't strain to love your kin,
Put distance between,
And stay away
To prevent ulcers.
And don't question when
The stranger in the street
Tugs at your heart,
For here is your kin,
The kindred spirit puts out its hand,
And shakes,
And awakes love.
So do you meet your mate.
No blood tie here but someone closer
................than your skin.
So don't worry
When you cannot
Love
Your brother,
Or your mother.
Don't wilt, as if under a sin,
You didn't ask for them to be your kin.
So throw away your guilt;
Love is no sin.
Catharine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock, the illegitimate daughter of a poverty-stricken woman, named Kate, whom she believed to be her older sister. She later met and married Tom Cookson, a local grammar-school teacher. In 1968 she won the Winnifred Holtby Award for the best regional novel of the year. Her readership quickly spread throughout the world after that and her many bestselling novels made her one of the most popular contemporary women novelists. She wrote 104 books in her lifetime. Amazing! She died shortly before her ninety-second birthday in 1998.
In Catharine's words: "There are among the bitches those who smile too! These are the ones who do it while cutting your throat"
Hello, Kitty dear!
Hello, Kitty dear!
How are you?
Is it true that you are writing?
How clever
To come all this way
From your background of drink
And fighting,
And, really, no education!
My dear, how you must have worked.
And, of course, to you all the glory.
But tell me,
Did you get
Some educated person
To edit for you
Your story?
This, in so many words, was actually said to Catharine Cookson.
