This painting and poem popped up in my Facebook feed last week, and I cried when I read the poignant words. The poetry expresses how I quietly missed my mom and dad every day for the first four years at boarding school.

I mentally changed a few words in the poem to reflect a school day at Kent Academy (KA), but the author’s loneliness touched my emotions … and my tear ducts.

Whom have you missed in the past, or whom are you missing today? Feel free to share in the comments below or send me an email.

The grief of separation. The loneliness it brings.  The silence that is demanded.  But, oh, how loudly it is felt.

When I turned six, I flew to KA for the first time. Loneliness, homesickness, and unnaturally long separations from family became my normal. Every morning, we little kids scurried from our dorm rooms to the dining hall and then the school building. I squirmed in my seat in math class and squinted at my book, confused by the squiggles on the page. Subject by subject, I felt distracted. As the day wore on, my energy drained, and I missed my family more and more. At dinnertime, tears brimmed in my eyes as I thought of my younger siblings and parents gathering around our peaceful table at home while I sat four hundred miles away in a crowded, noisy dining hall.

Silent Sorrow

Through my homesickness, I was not held or comforted. Instead, I was told not to cry and forced to be silent in my grief. I eventually figured out how to survive. Some students seemed to thrive, and I envied them. Less fortunate ones were bullied. Some of those went on to become bullies themselves, sending others into lifelong battles, searching for emotional and physical safety.

Eventually, I learned to cope and be strong—I clamped off my tears and tamped down my grief. But when I cut off the hard emotions, I also cut off the soft ones. I learned to be independent, looking out for myself at the expense of others.

There are far better ways to teach a child to be strong—nourishing ways that don’t necessitate recovery from the coping mechanisms.

Years later I came to understand that well-meaning people don’t always make good decisions. Even devout missionaries do not always represent God. God didn’t cause the harm, pain, and abuse. I don’t know why he allowed it, but I’m looking back and seeking above all else to discover where Jesus was with me through it.

Processing Grief

Someone asked me why I’m still writing about sad events in my childhood. For years, I kept these stories hidden because they felt too shameful to bring to light. So I trudged on with life. Each story is difficult to write, especially since I was conditioned from the first few weeks in boarding school to suppress my fears, complaints, and questions.

Now, my forced silence has been broken. For the past few years, I’ve been writing vignettes about my childhood. Those have been therapeutic. I’ve slowly found healing through sharing the truth of my experiences. Others had far different experiences than I did, and each person is free to tell their own story.

I’d like to say a big Thank You to all my friends, family, and faithful blog readers who have staunchly supported me along the healing journey.

I feel your love loudly.

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Quietly was written by Becky Hemsley 2024. Her poems are available to download for free from her website here. This poem is on her Facebook page.

The artwork is by Lilymoon. She has published a personal explanation of her painting on Patreon. She has a Facebook page and a Patreon account.

Janet Carr combined the poem and artwork and this is what showed up in my Facebook feed. She posted it on her blog here.