The Petulant Critic and the Mona Lisa Smile

Month 2 – Day 9: The challenge of the caregiver: How to find yourself, and choose love, when the voice of fear keeps asking, “Where did you go?”

She Dares by Louise Gallagher

Oct 10, 2025

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4:00 am. My mind drifts into wakefulness, still shaking off a disturbing dream.

In it, I am walking a path across a field. A snake appears on the trail. Mouth spilling letters like jelly beans, he spies me and slithers away. The scattered letters dance a frenzied jig, then fall in scattered sequence into a question I desperately try not want read: “Where did you go?”

Angry, I rush forward to kick their accusatory presence away, but a woman appears on the trail. Her smile, as enigmatic as a Mona Lisa, is her only response. She holds out her hands, and the letters leap up to form a radiant diamond necklace around her neck.

What the feck?

This dream crystallizes the biggest challenge of my life as a full-time caregiver: To not lose myself in the midst of caring for another. Somewhere in the daily angst and confusion of watching the man I love lose ground to this almost year-long pneumonia that has complicated his COPD even further, I have lost ground against anger, regret, and fear. My disgruntled state of mind has disrupted everything, compromising the very kindness and compassion I strive to live by.

The internal critic hisses the question: Where did I go?

Today’s poem for Month 2: Day 9 of Dear Me, I Love You, my mission to write a love poem a day for a year is the answer. I’m finding myself again, right where I belong, anchored in these words reminding me to Choose Love. Always.

The Sage’s Silence
by Louise Gallagher

With the whine of a petulant child,
the critic within asks,
“Where did you go?”

The Sage holds her silence in grace,
her Mona Lisa smile
her only response.

She knows I am right here
anchored in the Now
which cannot be anywhere else
but where Love is
when I lean into her tender voice
urging me 
with every breath
to Choose Love. Always.