One of the things the preacher mentioned yesterday was how fast time moves. The days really are long, and the years really are short; and they're busy, and they're messy, and they're consumed by friends, school, sports, homework assignments and projects, and somehow, some way we as parents attempt to throw in life lessons, discipline, tough love, direction, advice, and wisdom enough to send them out into the world safely and with a good conscience and morals and convictions and more. The preacher then asked the question, a question that perhaps gets lost in the middle of all I just mentioned: when our kids look at US, looking at them, do they see disappointment or delight?
Oh, the delight! In every year, every grade, every sport, every smile. So much delight! Every Christmas, every birthday, every little moment I had alone when we would steal off to the grocery store together. New delights, when we shopped for school clothes, new baseball gloves, every new friend you make. Unimaginable delight, when you held your baby brother Tate for the very first time, when you babysit your baby brother Truett with cartoons and piggyback rides and secrets not meant for mom and dad.
Oh, the delights still in store for this mom who today celebrates your amazing birth, your amazing personality, your gentle spirit, your quirky sense of humor, and your FANTASTIC taste in music!
I chose this poem because I love the words this dad has for his daughter, and even though it is written to a daughter, I think they are words every one should hear. So listen, ignore, absorb, roll your 15 year old eyes at me. Just know that I love you with an irrational love that can't be defined with just words, but for an English teacher mom I think these are pretty sweet words.
To a Sad Daughter
by Michael Ondaatje
All night long the hockey pictures
Gaze down at you
Sleeping in your tracksuit.
Belligerent goalies are your ideal.
Threats of being traded
Cuts and wounds
-- all this pleases you.
O my God! You say at breakfast
Reading the sports page over the cereal
As another player breaks his ankle
Or assaults the coach.
When I thought of daughters
I wasn't expecting this
But I like this more.
I like all your faults
Even your purple moods
When you retreat from everyone
To sit in bed under a quilt.
And when I say like
I mean of course love
You who feel superior to black and white movies
(Coaxed for hours to see Casablanca)
Though you were moved by Creature from the Black Lagoon.
One day I'll come swimming
Beside your ship or someone will
And if you hear the siren
Listen to it. For if you close your ears
Only nothing will happen. You will never change.
This is the first lecture I've given you.
You're 'sweet sixteen' you said
I'd rather be your closest friend
Than your father. I'm not good at advice
You know that, but ride
the ceremonies
Until they grow dark.
Sometimes you are so busy
Discovering your friends
I ache with a loss
-- but that is greed.
And sometimes I've gone into
My purple world
And lost you.
One afternoon I stepped
Into your room. You were sitting
At the desk where I now write this.
Forsythia outside the window
And sun spilled over you
Like a thick yellow miracle
as if another planet
Was coaxing you out of the house
--all those possible worlds!--
and you, meanwhile, busy with mathematics.
I cannot look at Forsythia now
Without loss, or joy for you.
You step delicately
Into the wild world
And your real prize will be
The frantic search.
Want everything. If you break
Break going out not in.
How you live your life I don't care
But I'll sell my arms for you,
Hold your secrets forever
. . .
Don't recall graves.
Memory is permanent.
Remember the afternoon's
Yellow suburban annunciation. . .
Forget the poem if you will, but know that your mom loves you forever.
