Unexpected Gift

When you were little,
sunny-natured little blue-eyed boy,
heart brimming with kindness
and sweetness,
so full of laughter,
you looked at me in your innocence
with eyes that looked within,
recognizing me, soul to soul,
as if you remembered me 
from lifetimes past,
and you had found me 
again.

I never could have foreseen
schizophrenia at seventeen,
a diagnosis that devastated my heart,
and set you on a decade 
of intense suffering.

It set us both
on a journey,
one that we talked 
our way through,
each on one end of the phone,
trying to untangle
your labyrinth.

The most unexpected thing--
that it  also brought us gifts:
of communication, acceptance
and unconditional love,
that we might not have found
so completely,
together,
along any other pathway.

manicdaily, hosting  at dVerse today, set our prompt as the Unexpected today. I could have written a thousand different poems as almost every DAY something unexpected happens on the road I am traveling:) But here is one, a gift that came disguised, at first, as suffering.