Yesterday, the mailman delivered two poems my mother wrote many years ago. I had forgotten how beautifully she expressed her love for her father in each tiny package of a poem.
Now that Mom is very ill, she asked what I'd like to have to remember her by. I knew immediately that those two poems were what I wanted most. I hadn't seen them in years, but as I read each one, memories of her reciting them to us came flooding back. She told me that she loved her father so deeply, she wanted to give a special gift to him, and her poems were all she had.
My grandfather cried when he read "Daddy's Girl." My mother knew he was proud of her when he asked for the poem to be read at his funeral. The second poem, "Angel" was written after her father passed.
As I remember, Mom only finished those two poems. She was always so busy with children and housework; there was little time for writing. I posted a poem I wrote about her last Mother's Day.
She sent "Daddy's Girl" out to a publisher once. When it was rejected, she was sure no one would want to read anything she wrote and gave up on her dream of seeing the poem in print.
I think she always meant to write more; time just got away from her. I wish she had written more. My fondest memory of her won't be one of her cleaning the house. It's the image of her sitting at the kitchen table putting so much of her heart into every line of those special little poems that I'll remember.
(I didn't print her poems here, because I'm hoping to find a publisher who will love them as much as I do.)
