Sunday, January 13, 2013

The Mother of Extraordinary

I wouldn't have
known how, or where,
to even beGIN to begin,
had I simply been blessed
with the perfectly
ordinary children
I had prayed for,
and expected.

I AM:
the ordinary woman
you won't see.
I'll never stand out
in (most) crowds.
Mine is the perpetually
(ever so slightly) familiar face
that you can ALMOST place,
that you suspect knows You, and
maybe even more ABOUT you,
than she does.

I AM, through no deed of my own: 
the MOTHER of Extraordinary.

Extraordinary
will entertain you,
question you,
challenge you, test you,
bring out your best, and
bring out your worst.
At some point,
Extraordinary
will surpass you.
And one day,
one day soon,
if you are as I am, the lowly
Mother of Extraordinary,
Extraordinary will leave you,
and go forth to challenge
the World in the manner
it first challenged YOU.

I AM: the Mother of
Extraordinary.
I carried, and pulled, and pushed,
and played, and painted, and
chased after, talked and listened,
sang, read, and prayed.
I AM: grateful and blessed,
and very, very tired.

Time passes at the same steady pace
that it has since its first Dawn,
yet always too swiftly, too soon, for us.

If by grace and
good fortune,
you chance to  meet
Extraordinary,
don't look away. 
Extraordinary can change the World,
And Extraordinary can change YOU.


Saturday, January 12, 2013

Seventeendipity

Seventeen years later,
I am wide awake.
I couldn't sleep that night, either.
I watched my husband sleep, restlessly, on the sofa, while I dutifully kept a meticulously accurate, if barely legible, record of frequency and duration of contractions, gentle squeezings that I would be aware of, but able to sleep through, with future births.

Young, so very young,
I woke him and we hurried
to the hospital...to wait.
The sun rose, and so began
essential, (land line)
phone calls, one at a time,
announcing that today,
January 13, 1996,
would be THE day.

Shortly after noon,
we found ourselves
forever changed-
Our One True Love
had become our
One True Family.

Seventeen years a mother,
a seventeen year adventure
filled with more laughter, pride,
love, and successes,
but also more failures,
than I had anticipated.

Learning, learning,
always learning,
believing that the job of
parents is to train
and prepare children
to become upstanding citizens,
competent, independent adults,
but not knowing how to prepare myself
For that inevitability.


Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Our Family Tree is an Orchard (and that's okay)

How very far
The branches stretch.
Over years and miles,
the seeds and leaves, and
cones have scattered.

But ROOTS are forever.
Roots are Love.
Roots are Family.
The Hearts in a Family
remain connected.

And the very same
Southern soil from
whence we all came
will run forever
through all our veins.


Monday, January 7, 2013

For the Fourth, on the arrival of the Fifth

God made you a little boy, and
then HE made you a Man. 
God chose your mate, and
then He let you think that
YOU chose your mate.
Now, through that Union,
He has created, and
entrusted to your care,
a brand-new, tiny person,
making a fine family where
once there were only
two young people,
Happy, and madly in love.