Into My Own

~Robert Frost
 

ONE of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.
I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.
I do not see why I should e’er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.
They would not find me changed from him they knew—
Only more sure of all I thought was true.

Dear Mom,

Many words in these posts are about dad, perhaps not always overtly so, but you recognize the ebb and flow of my words.  Sometimes the most difficult aspect of a relationship is the lack of closure following its end.  I seem to be always searching for the period at the end of the sentence, or the epilogue that comes at the fading of the book.  It is true that dad provided much of the fuel for my maddening fight.  Sometimes it was much like gasoline.  Ultimately though, the story of me is about survival.  For that fire, I can be grateful to dad despite everything.

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. ~Honore de Balzac, author

Still, I wonder if you can forgive me...for always looking back at the sadness, for struggling to channel the anger, for trying to assimilate it all, somehow, into my life today.  What I want you to know is that I have not forgotten:  I am not only his daughter.  I am yours as well.  No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement. ~Florida Scott-Maxwell  It is your calm, your smile, the seeds that you have sown. ~ These are anchors that hold me steady when my heart is adrift. You are, as you always have been, a safe harbor.

What I want you to know is that where I have been may have a lot to do with dad, but where I am going has everything to do with you.  How could you have known so many years ago that those alphabet flashcards (still in my cabinet) and journals and stories ~ shared because you believed literacy mattered ~ could have such an impact? Most mothers are instinctive philosophers. ~Harriet Beecher Stowe  More importantly, I watched (and am still watching) you read.  You taught by example. That best academy, a mother's knee. ~James Russell Lowell  And so today, as I contemplate research that will perhaps impact the lives of others, I return to those memories of us...a mother and her young child, reading and learning and falling in love with words. I only hope that every child might be so blessed.  Whatever I do in this educational journey that is good, it is you to whom I am indebted foremost.  Love, S. xo

As is the mother, so is her daughter.~Ezekiel 16:4  

Lord, let it be so.