Happy Birthday my sweet baby boy. I love and miss you. The years pass, but…
As you turn nine,
my daughter, I see
how time stretches and shrinks,
and becomes simply,
that one moment.
You are not a baby anymore,
so why do I watch you sleep?
Tiptoe in the middle of the night,
to check your windows
Are they locked?
So no one can take you
from me,
too.
If there is no rise
and fall
of your chest, then my hand
gently,
every so tenderly,
touches right where
your heart is.
Beating.
Breathe.
I can sleep tonight.
You are not a baby anymore,
but we yearn to snuggle each other,
those random weekend nights,
I hold you,
as if you were still
my baby.
Safety, life continues,
we both feel it.
As I lie, watching
you roll over to me,
face against mine, eyes closed.
Dreaming, of another day,
Happy, innocent.
If you exhale, and I inhale,
exhale, you inhale,
then do we become part of each other,
do my lungs receive,
pieces of you,
were these pieces of Ben, you became,
as you fed him his bottles,
and you both,
Inhaled, then Exhaled?
There will come a day,
when you will ask,
and read,
want to know,
and not understand
my answers, because the world will still
be all Good in your eyes.
But I will have to show you,
and you will see,
and we will grieve again together,
so it will be your task, as you grow
and Live and Learn,
to transform that which you will not understand.
But, that day is not now,
for on your birthday night,
you are still my baby,
as I inhale your
Innocence.
* My oldest daughter turned nine on April 14th. Happy Birthday love! What a happy, mature, and kind young lady you have become. I love you!