Till the Moon and Stars are Gone

Michael and I are going through everything in the house, one closet or drawer at a time.  We are throwing away and donating.  It is amazing how much lighter things can be.

Right now I am sorting through a box that we found in the closet we visited yesterday.  I am having too much fun.  This is how I am (you may be this way, too):  I love being a little pack-ratty, because at some point, I will visit a box or a file or a coat pocket, and I will find FUN!

For instance, I just found a biography of ME written by my daughter when she was fourteen.  She wrote it for school.  It is bound in a stiff paper binder, and the front looks like this (but without the messy cross-outs I added for privacy's sake):

I have had so much fun reading this!  Noticing the spin from a fourteen-year-old's perspective.  So beautiful.

When Jamie mentioned her own birth, she didn't say a thing about how gorgeous she was, and she didn't mention the daffodils that were showing themselves in the park as we drove home from the hospital.  But she included a poem that I wrote for her shortly after her birth:

Jamie

You wake each day as

the sunshine rises,

Smiling to greet the dawn.

You laugh and sing with 

the birds outside,

Till the moon and stars are gone.

And I know each time

I look at you,

I see all that is and was

and will be.

The oceans and mountains,

the young and old,

are all within your eyes.

And this is what she wrote about me at the end of the biography:

The virtues she wants her children to have are kindness, self-esteem, and respect for others. 

She doesn't know what the future brings, but has high hopes.

Twenty-three years since this bio was written (wowzers!) and now I can take a look at a big piece of the future that young mother, Carol, was facing.  If time travel were an option, I would go back and tell her that her future will be interesting and challenging and rich and wonderful.  I would let her know that her children will truly grow to be kind, with sufficient self-esteem that continues to grow and, they have sincere respect for others. And all that is and was and will be - the oceans and mountains, the young and old - will always shine within her beautiful daughter's eyes.