Poetry Train Monday - 120 - Having Your Cake and Eating It Too

Next weekend I'll be participating in my first-ever Run for the Cure, a fund-raising event for breast cancer. This is a personal milestone for me, as my chronic knee pain from an injury prevented me from joining my corporate team last year.

But now - with my incredibly successful acupuncture treatment from Vivian Yuan - my knee can carry me through the event.

Donations are gratefully accepted. You can click onto my personal sponsor page at the top of my sidebar.

I'm actually walking, not running, with a 12-member team from work, plus my sister, who also used to work at the same office as me.

My sister and I have a personal reason to take part. Our one remaining grandparent is a decades-long breast cancer survivor - Viola Phillips.

And my found poem today is taken from a memoir she wrote up a few years ago. This picture was taken at Easter this year by my aunt. Grandma is shown here at left with her friend of many decades, Sarah Terrio.



















Having Your Cake and Eating It Too


From there on we moved to Grayling
In the North Country
Within a year I was employed
By a family-owned excavating business

There I became
The Controller/Bookkeeper
Doing everything from Tax reports to W-2's

There were six owners in this business
They confided in me
As if I were their mother
Of course
I was older than all of them

I also took care of
The mother's finances
They were wonderful people to work for
It lasted for more than seven years

When I had surgery
A complete Mastectomy
I went back to work
But with the intentions of leaving
As soon as I could train another girl, which I did
I must have done a good job
Because
She stayed there a long time!

After all those working years
My husband Gabe and I
Were living on the beautiful Manistee River
In a cute little cottage style house
For over 25 years

We loved it there very much
The beautiful trees
The river
The wild animals
The picturesque snowfalls on the trees

This was like having your cake and eating it too

- Viola Phillips, August 2005

For more poetry, Ride the Poetry train!

Linda Jacobs says The simple words are powerful!

Shelley Munro says Good luck with your walk, Julia. I'm so glad your knee has improved so much.

Sarah Crowther says This poem really has flow and emotion.