Each second we live…

“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.” ~ Pablo Casals

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May we raise children who love the unloved things

May we raise children
who love the unloved
things–the dandelion, the
worms and spiderlings.
Children who sense
the rose needs the thorn

& run into rainswept days
the same way they
turn towards sun…

And when they’re grown &
someone has to speak for those
who have no voice

may they draw upon that
wilder bond, those days of
tending tender things

and be the ones

~~ Nicolette Sowder ~~

Love them and win their love…

While they are at your side, love these little ones to the uttermost. Forget yourself. Serve them; care for them; lavish all your tenderness on them. Value your good fortune while it is with you, and let nothing of their babyhood go unprized.

Not for long will you keep the happiness that now lies within your reach. You will not always walk in the sunshine with a little warm, soft hand nestling in each of yours, nor hear little pattering feet beside you, and eager baby voices questioning and prattling of a thousand things with ceaseless excitement.

Not always will you see that trusting face upturned to yours, feel those little arms about your neck, and those tender lips pressed upon your cheek, nor will you have that tiny form to kneel beside you, and murmur baby prayers in your ear.

Love them and win their love, and shower on them all the treasures of your heart. Fill up their days with happiness, and share with them their mirth and innocent delights.

Childhood is but for a day. Ere you are aware it will be gone with all its gifts forever.

~~ George Townshend ~~

Thanks to Sharon at https://aleafinspringtime.wordpress.com/ for finding these words and sharing them.

Happy Mother’s Day!

I like this photo because…

…first of all, these are the two most special girls in my life, my daughter, Janie, and my granddaughter, Katie.  It was Janie’s 26th birthday a few days ago and just as I was snapping this photo, Katie decided to give her mom a kiss.  What happened with the photo turned out to be one of life’s “melt your heart” moments for me.  Sometimes…I get lucky with a photograph.  I love these two.  🙂

Time for an updated “Katie” photo… a lovely little flower. :-)

Making the decision…

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” ~ Elizabeth Stone

Lovely Katie, my granddaughter…six-year-old sweetness. :-)

“No one has yet…

“No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness, and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.” ~ Emma Goldman

What Is Supposed To Happen

When you were small,
we watched you sleeping,
waves of breath
filling your chest.
Sometimes we hid behind
the wall of baby, soft cradle
of baby needs.
I loved carrying you between
my own body and the world.

Now you are sharpening pencils,
entering the forest of
lunch boxes, little desks.
People I never saw before
call out your name
and you wave.

This loss I feel,
this shrinking,
as your field of roses
grows and grows…

Now I understand history.
Now I understand my mother’s
ancient eyes.

~~ Naomi Shihab Nye ~~

My daughter’s poem about her two children… :-)

The Ladybug and the Ant

Was it the rays and glory from the halo that shone off the angels when I looked through your eyes that mid morning?

Echoes from the halls, but yet in the embrace of my arms, so quiet, with the look of content and glowing from knowing.

This was your place, from which you will take root and bloom. No other saw, but you raised your head, and seeped through my soul, as I saw the rarest of all two.

It was like when you stumble upon these rigid rocks, and realize deep inside it’s only for you, it would sparkle and shine, the rarest of hue.

To first grasp your head, it felt like a million downy feathers bundled in one. So gentle was your presence, it would make me from that second change.

I was like the oyster that would hold and embrace its pearl deep within, and keep it safe from harm. It would try this for so long, and it would not exchange.

This feeling for no other, your fingers, how they would drown my finger in emotion as it sought to do, with you wrapped around like a yellow ribbon on that old oak tree.

It is so hard to speak of how you came here, how it was possible to make such a being, a new petal on that rose bud, and you came to be.

It seems it was the day before when this all was true. Now I see you play in the gold and burgundy fall, with that smile that makes me weak, my little mister.

I would love to say you were the only thing that climbed my ivy filled fence, but you were just as equal, and yet so far, as the day I met your sister.

Oh, my little blue morning orchid that came to my life. Her eyes were not as loud, silent, yet she knew this was home, like a baby deer drinking in the forest down upon the silvered creek.

She was a girl of any, her hair as soft as the first plucked wish weeds. To know what life was before her, was far too bleak.

Her toes were as small as the minced grains of stones you find in the coral hiding of the beaches of riddance.

She was beyond what I made her up to be. It was like when you would see a red robin fluff its breast up in all its brilliance.

It knew it was radiant and bright, and my love for her grew with every sight.

Her sweetness set you on a trail of a truffle chocolate turbulent delight.

When I would see her, and light stands still, I would lean into those timber bridged eyes.

My son, as the curious ant leaving the pack, and my daughter, as the ladybug resting on the grass blade.

Without these two, I would be nothing. It would come to no surprise, I would most likely shrivel to my demise.

~~ Janie Welsh ~~