Dad would lie on his back
in the middle of the living room.
I would step into his open palms
on either side of his shoulders
and slowly, he’d lift me into the air.
I loved the wavering, the bobble
before the balance, the moments
of freedom when I floated above him.
Today, when the concert ended
with “What a Wonderful World,”
it was only in the last verse I realized
they’d played Dad’s favorite song
on this day, his birthday, almost
five years after his death, and
I felt it again, that sense of being
elevated by a power greater than my own.
Tears falling even as I started
to laugh. Laughter rising even
as I started to cry. The gift of it all
swirling in me as ecstatic as the violins,
primal and playful as the drum beat,
unexpected as the riffs on the piano,
familiar as my dad’s hands wrapped
around my soles pressing me higher,
oh wonderful world, higher.
Posts Tagged ‘daughter’
July 5
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birthday, childhood, dad, daughter, father, memory, music, remembrance, what a wonderful world on July 5, 2026| 2 Comments »
Sending Love
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, distance, love, mother, sky on June 12, 2026| 2 Comments »
for my daughter
When you were a girl
and you’d leave for camp,
I would talk to you
through the sky,
whispering through
blue and star-dappled
dark. The message
was always the same:
I love you. I hope you
are happy. I want to gather
you a jar full of sky
so wherever you are
you can put your ear
to it and hear those simple
words translated into starlight
and sunset, cumulous
and cirrus. Sometimes
it’s easier to trust what
we can hold in our hands.
But if you ever spilled
the contents of the jar,
the love would be no less
present. In fact, you could
hold the empty glass
to your chest and feel
how love is as uncontainable
as wind, as insistent as thunder,
as everywhere as air.
The Conversation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birds, conversation, daughter, forgiveness, knitting, love, mother, naming on June 3, 2026| 4 Comments »
I was sitting beside my mother on the couch,
knitting a blanket for my girl. My mother held
the yarn in her lap, a cloud of muted pinks.
Outside, the tall dry grasses weaved
in golden evening light. A Western Warbling Vireo
rambled on in its jumbled, warbly way. Mom spoke
of her plans for dinner the next night
and I knit two, purled six, knit two, purled six.
She guided the soft wool through her fingers,
keeping just the right amount of slack. I felt
such a tide of love for her. Wanted to tell her
I’m sorry for every time I’ve been hardened,
every time I’ve pushed her away instead
of pulling her close. I wanted to whisper
the love beyond words, some sentence true
as the sweetness I felt today sitting beside her
in the sun in the grass while we waited
for a Belted Kingfisher or Northern Yellow Warbler
to fly across the pond. But to name a feeling is so
much harder than naming a bird. So when the row
was done, I rested my head on her shoulder, closed
my eyes and nuzzled in. There was only softness
in me then. I’d like to think she translated what
I meant. Just as I knew what she was saying to me
with each length of unspooling yarn: I know
how you love me. I know your heart. I love you, too,
my girl. By the time we rose, we were held
by the dark. Even the swallows were quiet.
The Moment I Hope to Remember
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, exhaustion, graduation, love, mother, ordinary moment on May 28, 2026| 2 Comments »
sitting on the couch,
our bodies lean into each other—
two aspen trees, shared roots
The Day Before Graduation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, framing, graduation, love, parent, story, writing on May 27, 2026| 4 Comments »
for Vivian
Already she knows terrible things happen.
Already she knows the pleasure of scrambling
in the woods at night with friends and singing
too loud and making bad choices that are sometimes
exactly the right choices. She knows sobs and
silliness. She knows how much humans can hurt
each other. She knows how a touch or a tender
word erases nothing but creates its own plot of trust.
There was a time when my job was to protect her,
filling her pages with beauty and courage and honesty.
Now my job is mostly to love her, to give her her own pen.
Because terrible things happen. And she is the one now
who shapes her story. Every writer knows, we write
what we know—and what we can’t ever know.
I pray what emerges is the impossible—an irrational,
deep rooted love for this difficult, glorious world.
What Goes On
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bindweed, daughter, garden, mother on May 25, 2026| 5 Comments »
Knowing it will grow back tomorrow
does not stop me from pulling
the bindweed today. Once I pulled
bindweed as if the goal was to clear it
from the garden. Now, I pull bindweed
as if the goal is to love this act of being
alive, this ritual of pulling bindweed, my
daughter beside me, soft easy chatter
rising between us. There is no blessing
or disaster yet that has ended this
communion of tugging on the long white
roots. Somehow, in this season of
endings, the bindweed seems to promise
tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
Two Thousand Three Hundred Forty
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, food, graduation, letting go, love, lunch, mother, school on May 22, 2026| 4 Comments »
That’s how many school lunches
I’ve made her, more or less, since
that first day she held my hand and we
stood on the grass outside the elementary school
before the first bell rang. Her hair was blonde then,
mine not gray. I’m not crying as I make her
lunch this morning. Dilled bean and rice salad.
Fresh blackberries. Pretzel sticks.
Honeycrisp apples sliced into thin rounds
that her friends call “floppy apples.”
Maybe I’m crying.
Me and all the other mothers on the last
day of the last year of school. Thinking of
two thousand three hundred forty bleary mornings
when I woke to pour love into plastic containers
along with dried mango and tofu cubes,
seaweed strips and yogurt tubes.
Okay. So I’m crying. I nibble the squared off core
of the apple to gather every last bit of sweetness.
When it’s gone, I lick the stickiness from my fingers.
Watching My Daughter Before Her Prom
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, impossible, love, mother, prom on May 3, 2026| 3 Comments »
More flowing than walking
she moves down the street,
her green dress billowing,
her shoulders bare.
Sometimes the world
asks us to do impossible math—
for instance to add more love
when already we are filled to capacity
with love. And again tonight, I meet it,
the impossible.
At the Senior Dance Recital
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ballet, dance, daughter, mother on April 2, 2026| 4 Comments »
After fourteen years of pink leotards
and bobby pins, sewing ribbons
on pointe shoes and driving home late
from rehearsals, she dances tonight
with feline ease, confidence in the curl
of her fingers, grace in her glance
as she follows the gentle lift of her arm,
and instead of trying to capture
this final recital in pixels, I bid myself
to be completely here, following her
leaps and feeling the fierce inner deluge
of joy and pride and love and thrill
as for one last time she smiles
from the stage and I see her as
the small white-winged angel who could
barely plié, and I see her now as she soars,
almost flies, before, with a wave of her arm,
she bows, turns toward the wings, disappears.
A Sign?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, feather, meaning, sign on February 25, 2026| 6 Comments »
There, on my sleeve, a small white feather.
I don’t know that I believe in signs.
But the white feather that appears on my sleeve
while I think of saying goodbye to my girl
doesn’t mean nothing. It says to me,
pay attention. It says, slow down. It says,
you have learned how to love what isn’t here.
I think of all the white feathers I started to see
after the death of my son. On the sidewalk.
In the air. On a mug. In a dream.
So I say to the feather, I see you. And I say
to the feather, thank you for reminding me
to notice the smallest of things. I say to the feather,
such a gift that you should appear here now.
And I say to my girl, I see you. And I say to my girl,
I love how good your hand feels in my hand. And I say
to my girl, such a gift you are here right now.