7/1/20
For Everly
Your tiny hands
With those delicate fingers
You have always been able to pick up the smallest things
Pressing thumb and forefinger together
Before anything else
You could bring those together
Now you use them to pick up crumbs
To “make string”
To find the tiniest hair that has drifted down to land on you
What will those precise fingers do in the future?
What have my hands taught you to do?
7/7/20
For Greyson
We’re in the cry it out phase
So I put you down
Walk away before your eyes have closed
Most of the time
It’s fine
But
Sometimes you cry so long that I come back in
Lean over you
Wrap my hands around your tiny head
Lean my head close so that my hair comes down like curtains around us
I smile and hope that you are inhaling the scent of me
Feeling those fingertips that you would wrap your hands around as you fell asleep
Some part of me hopes that these tiny moments let you know that you are safe
That they carry you through the moments when I’m not coming through the door
I’m hoping that the angels around you
Really do stand guard
Just like I pray that they will do every night in your nightly prayers
I can see them standing around you now
A few faced out to stand watch
While the others lean down around you
Waft the scent of my hair toward you
Just like I still sometimes catch whiffs of your great grandpa’s cologne
My heart is there with you
All night sweet boy
Just like it would be if you were sleeping beside me
Head curled into my chest.
7/12/20
For Everly
You wore a cornflower blue polka dot dress today
One that was mine when I was small
I couldn’t get over the way you spun around in it, just for fun
Or the curl of your hair over the white lace and buttons
I could tell that you felt beautiful in that dress
The kind of beautiful that has almost nothing to do with how you actually look
Maybe someday you will pass that dress down
Watch your own babies spinning in that vintage magic
7/14/20
For Everly
You trailed after your grandpa today
Willing to put on shoes and completely abandon the kiddie pool to follow him over to the side of the house where he was gathering branches and sticks from the trimmed honeysuckle bushes
Today he was your best friend
You followed him into the garage and got into tool boxes that he didn’t want you to
I watched this little relationship blossom from a distance
Knowing that you felt none of my complicated emotions about this man
To me, he had always been a step out of sync, a little too late to the game to feel like family
But, just like my own grandparents
To you he is just grandpa
And that is just how I want him to be for you
no less than any other grandparent you have.
7/17/20
For Everly
Yesterday you slept late for your nap
I don’t like to wake you on days like that
You look so peaceful
You get so upset sometimes to be woken
So I sat on the bed
Rubbed your back
Waited
For you to be ready
Slowly you opened your eyes
Laid there pillowed on those cheeks that take me right back to your baby days
I sat on the ground in front of you
Still waiting and rubbing your back
Then it was like you saw me
Finally awake
And you smiled
This huge grin that reached up to your eyes
That one moment
That smile
Was like the day I fell in love with your daddy
I’m sure if he could see me
I would have been wearing the new smile
The one that says that happy endings are real
That darkness can never last
Because moments like that are too real for words
7/18/20
For Greyson
I know I will forget
The way you rested your head in the crook of my elbow
Left your tiny hand on my breast
Settled back to sleep
I will forget
The way your profile looked in the pale blue light of 8:44 on a summer night
At peace with just the slightest furrow to your brow
I will forget the weight of you in my arms
So this poem will remember for me
That you were once so small
So trusting
So completely mine
7/22/20
For Everly
I found you curled up
In your chair from when you were small
You had fallen asleep there
One arm around your bear
Greyson’s blanket trailing out of the left side of it
(You like his blanket better than your own)
Daddy and I tucked you in
Laid blankets over you when we noticed your goosebumps
And talked softly about how you were the best thing we had ever made
7/23/20
I don’t think I’m ok
I think the monster has come for me
And it doesn’t look like I thought it would
7/24/20
For Greyson
You were sick
I came into your room
Thinking that the boom of the fireworks
That had kept me up for the past hour
Had kept you up too
But then I settled you into the bed with me
You threw up
And I knew that you weren’t ok
I laid you against my chest
With your head up resting on my shoulder
You were exhausted
Wilted into me
One arm curled around my neck
You wanted to stay right there while you puked
Cried when I turned you away from me to lose it in the sink or a bowl
I spent the night with you in my arms
Slept all night with you there
It was hard
I was tired
My dreams were stilted and strange as if I were the one who was sick
But always you were there
And I was with you
Like I never thought I would be able to be
Because I lose it
When people lose it
It was a Mama moment
Hard
A rite of passage
Beautiful
Heartbreaking
Like so many moments of motherhood
It was everything at once
7/28/20
For Greyson
You give me kisses
So many kisses
Open mouth
Clamped down on my chin
Fingers knotted into my hair
To cling onto me
Pull me in tighter
You don’t kiss anybody
The way you kiss me
It means a lot
These days seem so hard
So lonely
But those kisses feel like connection
When I feel about to break
They bring me right smack dab into the middle of that moment
I can’t help but be present in those kisses
I need that
7/31/20
For Everly
2 and a half
Baby girl
Daddy called today my Pre-launch
For my 30th birthday
But in my mind
Today was yours
We threw rocks in the river
Watched Scorpia
A “different” Frozen
Got French fries
Ate them in the grass
Then filled up the pool
It was a good day
For a pre-launch
And for a half birthday.
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