Those laughing eyes

Like a calico cat you grew
up proud and beautiful.

We remember you pointing
a little finger at the yellow
flower patch by your
play cabin, bobbing high
on the rope swing

then scooting with a handful
of daisies, even stepping
around prickly thistles
past daddy’s hammock
and running like
a windy gust across pieces
of wood for a sidewalk.

Our backyard trees still
surround walls once
made of blankets, momma’s old
cushion and faded table
remain, also a slab of panel
cut for a roof.

Come visit soon and be our
little girl once again.

“My patience, resolutions and beliefs are tested to the limits – sometimes daily.”^*

Right at this moment one of my challenges is the constant, tuneless whistling from my elder son. When my boys were babies it was getting them to sleep or trying to figure out why they were crying. On any given day now, it might be squabbling, fighting, teasing, screaming, shouting or rudeness. Who’d be a parent? We might well question ourselves after the event, but we can’t very well put them back! Just how we find those inner resources, how we constantly demand more of ourselves, how we keep marching up that hill with a smile on our face and gladness in our heart at the sight of our ‘babies’ is one of life’s mysteries.

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