I imagine them in June, their anniversary, their birthday.
I imagine the day, sweet with spring blossoms, fragrant with the ripened lilacs, the freshly cut alfalfa, and fresh with promise of fruitful summer, and their own understanding of the abundant life to come that they would share together. I imagine the visits from sisters, brothers, parents offering birthday and anniversary greetings, a laugh with their siblings.
I imagine the industry of the day, the care of the children perhaps with Joyce’s help, the milking of the cows, the chores in the house and barn.
I imagine the perfect sun of the day, the lovely light shining through the new leaves of spring trees, the dappled shadows on the grass brilliant with new growth.
I imagine the evening meal, them feeding their young children, laughing at the sweet children’s laughter and their joyful household
I imagine them gazing at each other with love and understanding, both of them with rapt admiration each for the other, filled with an amazement of their own good fortune to have found each other, to have created their perfect family, 4 beautiful and clever children, and of their mutual and appreciative feelings of an overflowing cup.
I imagine the gentle calm evening, of them putting their 4 pretty children safely into their beds and themselves into one another's loving care.
And the seed that would become me was planted, and though not initially wanted, ruining as it were the perfection of that happy household, I was embraced and loved by my mother as I was the product of a loving union. She knew me at once, almost immediately, so that by the time I saw light of day, I was already befriended, beloved, and until just now, just now, she knew me longer and better than anyone. I approach a time when someone else will have known me longer than my mother. I approach a moment of time in which someone will have been longer acquainted with me, but never more knowing or the dearest advocate of my life.
She said “When you have a project, by the time it comes to physically complete it, it’s mostly done by the thought you should have put into it.” She was very organized. She said when asked about good literature versus bad “How will you know what’s good if you don’t read everything?” She never censored our reading. “look it up” she’d say when we asked how to spell a word. There was always a dictionary at hand. I will never forget her heartbreak when, after her stroke, she couldn’t figure out how to use the dictionary, at her anguished “I’m an 80 year old woman and I can’t spell”.
She admitted to me, and to the youngest of us that we weren’t expected nor particularly wanted, but after we wended ourselves into her heart that she also could not imagine her life without us And I am comforted to know that when she needed me, I helped her with what I could, and that I tried my best to make her as peaceful as she could be, tried to calm her fears as she was reverting back to a fearful time, and to try to explain as she was moving through into confusion. I was born a child of love.
Self-Dependence, Matthew Arnold
Weary of myself, and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me
Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.
And a look of passionate desire
O'er the sea and to the stars I send:
'Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me,
Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!
'Ah, once more,' I cried, 'ye stars, ye waters,
On my heart your mighty charm renew;
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,
Feel my soul becoming vast like you!'
From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven,
Over the lit sea's unquiet way,
In the rustling night-air came the answer:
'Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they.
'Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,
These demand not that the things without them
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.
'And with joy the stars perform their shining,
And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll;
For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting
All the fever of some differing soul.
'Bounded by themselves, and unregardful
In what state God's other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see.'
O air-born voice! long since, severely clear,
A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear:
'Resolve to be thyself; and know that he,
Who finds himself, loses his misery!'