Expecting my daughter to come in
late, I slept lightly, attentive
to the slightest sound.
Imagine my surprise when my son,
dead four years, came into my room
and spoke soft in my ear
to let me know he was home.
I hugged him so long. Wondered
aloud why I hadn’t been expecting him.
Let him know his sister had
taken over their old room. Together,
we sorted through his old art projects,
old shirts, old shoes. When his sister
came home we hugged her, too,
and played chase, leaping over the bed,
the chairs, laughing, squealing, alive.
Soon, I was floating—zagging
through the air with wild delight—
not because I was trying to fly, more
like I was a leaf lifted by wind, soaring
with no effort of my own. I chased them
this way, through the dream to the day,
and our laughter was then and now
and somehow inside me forever.
Posts Tagged ‘mother’
Fourteen Years Later I Remember
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged mother, Narnia, reading, restaurant, story on November 4, 2025| 8 Comments »
that morning in the Cajun restaurant
when the kids and I sat in the corner at a small
square table and after placing our breakfast order,
we arrived in Tashbaan at the home of the Tisroc,
following Shasta who had escaped being sold
as a slave. The waiter brought us eggs
and roasted potatoes tossed with thin slices
of softened red pepper and onion, splash of vinegar,
which we ate as we overheard the Tisroc discussing
the Narnian’s escape and the plans to kidnap
Queen Susan. It was hours after the waiter took
our plates, when the restaurant was fully empty,
that we re-emerged into the world of camping
and swim lessons, all of us fed by the magic of story,
a magic so potent I feel it still, not just the story
of Shasta, but the story of a mother and two children,
how they slipped into their own world, bodies leaning in
toward each other, hearts thundering, eyes bright.
Eyesight
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bees, flowers, garden, grief, mother, sight, vision on October 21, 2025| 9 Comments »
I’ve never seen the world the bee sees,
a world of iridescence in which petals
change color depending on the angle,
a world in which a field of sunflowers appear
not as a smear of yellow but as individual
blooms. I’ve never seen the bullseye
pattern in the primrose or the pansy,
these human eyes unable to perceive
designs in UV light. Today I look out
at the empty garden where just last week
there were marigolds and calendula,
and I see the absence of flowers, but also,
I see mounds of golds, yellows, oranges, and
I see the boy who used to sit on the edge
of the wooden beds and I see the young
version of me, not yet gray, weeding
the rows, while the boy tells me stories
about school and the things he longs
for beyond what he has. They’re there,
I know, the flowers, the woman,
the boy, though somehow they’re so far
beyond the spectrum not even
the bees can see them.
The Holding
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daily, daughter, holding, letting go, moment, morning, mother on October 17, 2025| 6 Comments »
for Vivian
Just today, you asked me
to hold the front door open,
your own hands too full
with a peach smoothie,
a cup of tea, your backpack
and dance bag and lunch box.
It gave me such joy,
this small act of service,
though now I also see it
as practice in letting you go.
I followed you out the door
into the frost-limned world,
yellow leaves falling before
the sun had yet risen.
It would be easy to forget
this moment with you.
We didn’t even pause
to enjoy it, just inhaled
the chill morning air,
both of us mumbling
how glorious it was
before you walked to the car
and I walked back inside.
Now, I see they’re everything,
these slim moments we share,
for a day is slim and a
year is slim, and soon your whole
childhood will also seem
slim. I hold them to me
like treasure, these slender
chapters, charged as they are
with beauty, hold them to me
even as I practice letting you go.
You, the Light
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, hand, light, mother, opening on October 10, 2025| 7 Comments »
I thought the way
to hold you
was by folding
myself around you,
gentle but tight,
the way the hand
wraps around pebble,
acorn, coin,
and now that
you’re not here,
the love no less great,
I stand outside
with my empty,
upturned hands
and understand
opening them
is the only way
to hold light.
What No One Else Can See
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, daughter, love, mother, string on September 20, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Every day I fasten
my heart to yours.
with invisible strings,
strings so light
you might almost forget
they are there
until you start falling
from any edge
like disappointment,
like betrayal, like
forgetting you belong.
The strings don’t
keep you from falling—
that’s just not
how it works.
Nor could I ever
control you with them
like some well-
intentioned puppeteer.
But feel that tug?
It’s my heart
reminding yours
we’re connected.
And remember those
simple phones we made
with string and two cups?
When you need me,
make of your heart
a cup. I will do the same.
I may not catch
all the words,
but I’ll feel them
with you, wherever
you are, I’ll
feel them.
In the Dark of the Cinema
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged audience, cinema, daughter, film, letting go, mother, movie, snuggling on September 1, 2025| Leave a Comment »
My daughter dangles
her legs over mine.
I rest my head on her
shoulder. Is it true
every film is an exploration
of how growth depends
on letting something go?
Or is it simply the glasses
I wear, lenses grubby
from tears, that make it
seem this way? All I know
is it’s easier to practice
letting go when
we’re curled in together,
her hand pressed into mine,
tears sliding down
both of our cheeks,
scent of popcorn
thick in the air,
and all around us
others sniffling, too,
the light blue against
our upturned faces.
Dressing for the Wedding
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged arms, body image, dress, mother, strength on July 29, 2025| 21 Comments »
She doesn’t want to wear short sleeves, she says,
because they will show her “old woman arms.”
Sometimes worry is just another word
for wanting to be loved just as we are.
I want to remind her how her arms
have been cradles and rocking chairs.
They’ve been cranes that lifted children
and grandchildren high. Her arms
have been levers and ladders and lifeboats.
They’ve been flagpoles and bridge makers
and chapels. Her arms kneaded the dough of my life
and still hold me when I am tired, broken,
scared, depressed. I hope she wears a sleeveless
dress for no other reason than to show
the whole world how her arms are still
in service to love, and damn, how they can flex.
What Can’t Be Lost
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, gift, lost, mother, spoon on July 22, 2025| 4 Comments »
Again I search the drawer
for my small silver spoon
with the Space Needle
on the handle, the one
my mother bought me
when I was not yet two
and we lived in Seattle.
How I loved that spoon,
bringing it with me everywhere
I’ve moved—to college, grad school,
to the top of a mountain,
to a low river valley. I love
the shape of it, sure,
the way the bowl of the spoon
is pointed and shallow,
perfect for small bites
of vanilla ice cream.
Mostly, what I love
is thinking of how my mother,
who had so little then,
wanted to buy her daughter
a treasure. It’s been years
since the last time I touched it.
It’s disappeared many times,
my own young children as enamored
with the spoon as I, and so
I have found the spoon behind the couch
or beneath their beds or left outside
on the arm of a lawn chair,
sometimes even back in its slot
in the drawer.
So for years, I’ve assumed
the spoon will return.
To this day, I don’t think of it as lost.
How could I, when every time
I eat yogurt or ice cream or oatmeal,
I look in the drawer for the spoon,
which is to say every day I touch the spoon
with my mind, every day I remember
the way a mother bought her daughter
a treasure, I think of the love, and every day,
even when it’s not here, it’s so here.
Just Before We Say Goodbye
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hiking, letting go, mother, presence, time on July 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »
The song we’ve been singing
is gone from the air.
We walk in satisfied silence now.
And it’s beautiful,
the trail lined with sego lilies
and purple fireweed.
This morning’s raindrops
cling to leaves.
How easy it is in this moment
to believe in forever,
the wild roses
endlessly blooming,
the sound of your footsteps
keeping time in front of mine.
When I’m Feeling Serious
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, joy, laughter, mother, wildflower on July 18, 2025| 4 Comments »
Curled up beside me,
my girl studies the laugh
of a man she admires
and the more he guffaws
the more she guffaws,
which of course,
makes me laugh, too,
and soon the evening
is a riotous bouquet
of giggles. I gather
the sound in me like a field
of wildflowers, a pleasure
that reseeds itself,
lovely as lupine, common
as blue flax that thrives
along even the busiest road.
When I say, I miss you
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, missing, mother, parenting on June 24, 2025| 2 Comments »
I mean there’s a silence
here where your voice should be,
an emptiness beside me
where your warmth is not.
I mean your cereal bowl
is not in the sink.
No scent of lavender candles
burning in your room.
I might say, I miss you,
but it’s code
for I miss who I am
when you are here.
Miss giggling until we fall
on the floor. Miss
the way my fingers
pull through your hair.
Miss holding your feet
while you sit in a chair—
that strange thing
that only we do.
I say, I miss you,
but I mean I miss
you humming the Eagles
while making chia seed pudding.
I miss the here of your hand
in my hand. I miss the here
of your feet on the floor,
I miss the here of your eyes.
The here of your sneeze.
The here, right here, of your sigh.
It Makes Me Want to Look Again, Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, emergence, growing up, mother on June 7, 2025| 2 Comments »
It’s like living with the same painting
for years and then one day seeing in it
something I’ve never seen before,
that’s what it’s like tonight when we’re walking
along the river and I see my girl as someone new
emerging from the daughter I have known
her whole life. It is, perhaps, because the slant
of light is just right for such seeing—
the source of the shine coming not from the sun,
but directly from her, from within.
For Now
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged contentment, daughter, happily ever after, happiness, love, mother, movie, music, story on June 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Driving home from the movie,
our blood still charged with adrenaline,
my daughter and I move through
the dark just under the speed limit,
our eyes trained on the red taillights
in front of us, and we talk about plot holes
and how we would change the ending.
Neither of us would have chosen happily
ever after, which somehow felt false
to the greater story. It’s not long before
we’re singing along to her favorite song.
I harmonize on the chorus, and
a “Peaceful Easy Feeling” grows in me
as we drive through pouring rain.
I may not believe in happily ever after,
but I do believe in content for now,
as in this moment when she reaches
for my hand and I slide mine into hers.
I can’t see her face in the dark, but
in her voice, I can hear it, her smile.
While Staring at My Flag on Memorial Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flag, memorial day, mother on May 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »
I think of those who died fighting
for our country, and how
when a child dies, a part
of a mother dies, too.
Tonight, as the low sun streams
through the red and white stripes,
mothers of soldiers, I honor you.
Right Now, Mid-Story
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bookmark, college, daughter, mother, story on May 22, 2025| 2 Comments »
I am placing a bookmark on this page
in which my daughter and I drive
highways and turnpikes and green
curving backroads, singing
our way past tree farms and smoke
stacks, past sheep and cornfields,
grand estates and collapsed barn roofs,
this page on which, in every moment,
we are driving right up to the blank
edge where the story is still seeking
its setting and the narrator is still
seeking her voice and the page is
still seeking the fingers that will turn
it and those fingers are still so soft
as, with total trust, they hold my hand.
Out of the Corner of My Eye
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, grief, mother, presence, river, son on May 8, 2025| 10 Comments »
Sometimes I expect to see him walking by the river,
to see his tall, thin body move through the willows,
camera in hand. I don’t see him, of course, but I do,
I see him as a young man in a blue button-up shirt,
his hair cut short, his movements doe-like as he
picks his way through the rocks. And sometimes
I see him a young boy, still blonde, still shrieking
with joy at the splash he can make with a big river rock.
And sometimes I see him as the willows themselves,
as if he’s come back in everything—the willows,
the river, the stones, the trees, this woman
who is standing at the window, looking.
In Second Grade
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, commerce, money, mother, music, work on March 30, 2025| 2 Comments »
I wanted that plastic recorder.
Wanted it so much that when mom
suggested I could earn that two dollars
by defrosting the freezer, I sat
on the black-and-white tiled kitchen floor
with a blow drier on high. For hours.
Sat there watching each drip.
Sat there longer, perhaps,
than the cumulative time I played
my recorder, but I tell you,
I cherished that brown plastic tube.
Every “Hot Cross Buns” I played
was an anthem to self-determination.
Almost fifty years later I don’t remember
what I read yesterday, but I remember
one a penny, two a penny.
I remember the drip, drip, drip of the frost.
I remember my mom saying,
No, not yet. Keep going.
I remember my lips on the mouthpiece,
the flesh of my fingertips
pressed on the holes,
the shrill music filling the kitchen.
And It Is
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ballet, dance, daughter, moment, mother on March 23, 2025| 10 Comments »
When you were small
I watched you dance
on the sidewalk, your arms
raised high as if inviting
the world to meet you,
rain and sun and all.
I watched you dance
in the living room draped
in hand-me-down dresses
and colorful scarves,
watched you dance
in small windowless rooms.
Now you dance on the big stage,
floating in on pointe shoes,
your hair in a perfect bun
you pin up by yourself.
I wonder if every other mother
sitting in the dark also forgets
every second of her life save this one,
this second when you raise
your arm with such grace,
this second when your effortless smile
sweeps across the crowd,
this second when you are so shiningly
yourself, a radiant being dancing
for the love of it, as if this is
the only moment that matters.
Letter to My Son, Over Three Years Since He’s Gone
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, grief, love, memory, mother, siblings, son on March 5, 2025| 9 Comments »
You would be jealous, I think,
of how your sister is learning trig,
speaking Spanish, playing bridge.
You’d probably tease her, but really,
what you’d be thinking is, She is so cool.
And she is, sweetheart. She’s fun
and silly. Like you. Only like her.
We talk about you, of course.
Just this weekend, we remembered
how once you said if a 99-pound person
ate a one-pound burger, they
would be one percent burger.
I wonder what percent of your sister
is grief? And what percentage love?
Tonight a girl asked her if she had any siblings.
She said, yes, a brother. When the girl
asked her how old you were, she told her
the truth. That you were seventeen
when you died. What a terrible gift
to learn how to say the hardest things straight.
I can’t help but think if you are watching her,
you, too, must be in awe of who she’s becoming.
Oh, how we learn to grow from whatever soil
we’ve been given. I do not pretend to know
how this works. I only know she
is learning to transform ache into beauty,
nightmare into dream. I only know
I long for her to know love from you
the way a garden feels loved by sun, by rain.