In honor of Mother’s Day, I am posting a poem written by my mother, for my twenty-first birthday.
Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
Holding five pounds of a newborn miracle
who could barely drink 4 ounces of fluid at one time.
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
A one-year-old’s Easter birthday,
sitting on her new rocker (just like mommy’s)
and sliding off onto the floor,
because of a wet diaper!
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
A two-year-old, whose daddy just left
and who decided to forego her potty chair
and remain in the security of being a “baby”
just a little longer . . .
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
A jubilant three-year old emerging from her room
like a butterfly from a cocoon,
decked out in every color of clothing she had,
announcing “I’m a rainbow!”
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
A four-year-old who had to have explained to her
that Jim was mommy’s boyfriend, not hers.
Who also asked, when Jim ate his first meal with us,
“Are you going to marry my mommy?”
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
On her fifth birthday, on our way to Day Care
asking me, “Am I big now, Mommy?”
I responded, “Yes, I believe you are.”
Her acknowledgment that “I knew it, I felt big.”
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
My tiny, little, vulnerable six-year-old girl
traveling by plane, alone, to Connecticut
to visit her dad . . . and, me, pacing all day
until I heard that she arrived safely.
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
The trauma for a seven-year-old losing your first tooth,
but the joy of a visit from the “tooth-fairy.”
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
When she was eight, almost nine . . .
wondering why she couldn’t go along
on Jim and my honeymoon.
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
My nine-year-old becoming a “ballerina”
and trying to teach me a “grande plié” with
disastrous, yet hilarious, results!
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
My ten-year-old, who, on her birthday,
found our ten month old kitten, hit by a car
and dead on the roadside, while walking home from school.
We had a family funeral for Sydney before we had
her less-than-enthusiastic birthday party.
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
At eleven-years-old, your enthusiastic desire
to learn how to play a flute, and
practicing often, without any reminders~
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
Being twelve-years-old, in the sixth grade
and your teacher saying you were bored often
because you were so bright the other children
weren’t learning fast enough to keep up with you.
That same teacher held auctions several times each year
where you could bid on items with earned “money”
from good school work.
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
The challenges of having a teenager,
watching you adjusting to middle school,
your wanting to fit in and wear make-up
and doing some acting out to make a statement.
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
My fourteen-year-old, in your last year of ballet,
injuring your knee cap and having to wear a
full-leg cast to keep your leg immobile!
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
At fifteen-years-old, in the ninth grade,
being in the Marching Band at Parkrose High School,
playing the flute and the piccolo, at times.
That summer, you even taught yourself how to play my clarinet.
Music was so natural and absorbing to you.
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
You, at age sixteen and a sophomore,
surprising your parents by getting accepted into
the “Honors Program.” Finally, classes that could
challenge your bright intellect!
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
Your being seventeen, a junior in high school,
having gone to Guatemala that past summer and
the impact of this trip on your life and on your
cultural awareness and the bonding with friends
and leaders in the Resurrection Youth Group.
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
The blessings and curses of your being a senior and working at McDonalds.
Good for developing a work ethic, bad for developing a smoking habit.
The pride of seeing you, with the Class of ’93, march across the stage
to receive your diploma . . . at my alma mater! And . . your typical, yet refreshing,
individualism in ordering, for the ceremony, the (men’s) green robe instead of
the traditional (women’s) white robe!
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
Sending you off to your first year of college,
seeing your joy, enthusiasm and vision of the future
contrasted with my emptiness and my child-shaped hole
left in my heart.
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Twenty-one, yet I remember . . .
The difficult summer and sophomore year it must have been
for you to loose first your grandpa (7/4/94), and then
your grandma (3/6/95), two people who were very much a part
of your daily life as you were growing up. Yet, I saw
your sense of family ties growing. Through their deaths,
you gained a new understanding of how precious your family ties are.
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Twenty-one, . . . I can’t believe it!
As you probably have figured out, twenty-one is a milestone
in some regards, but in other ways, it’s just another birthday as you
travel on your journey through life. You don’t magically become
an adult, more responsible, more mature, richer, wiser . . .
Life is a journey, sometimes growing step-by-step, sometimes by leaps and bounds.
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And, thankfully, Christel, we are all on the journey together, helping each other out, holding each other up! Happy traveling, Happy birthday, Christel!
Love you with all my heart,
Mom
4/18/96
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Random Musings 