Happy holidays friends and readers.  With the help of my daughter this poem is posted.  She wrote it last year.  Not one comfortable in the lime-light (or her work being so), she has reluctantly given her permission for me to share it here.

It is not often that we hear our children’s voices as to their experience living with a chronically and progressively ill parent.  I am grateful for the gift of this poem and the whisper of my daughter’s graceful voice.

Her fingers, long and slender

Shake more today

Guiding the hook through yarn

Knot after knot,

She looks fragile

Like the baby’s first Christmas ornament I hang

She watches, crochets

Tells me I’m my “mother’s daughter”

Making sure every branch is precise

That no two colors side by side are too alike

I wish I was a child again

Could stand as tall as her knees

And grab on

My world lying in her hands

Stringing a strand of lights

Stroking my hair

While we look up and sing

“Oh Holy Night

The Stars are Brightly Shining”

Now I sing, quietly, but I sing

She tells me to sing it for both of us

I don’t think my voice is strong

Enough

But I try

I try

(by, Madilyn Kuhn)

Happy holidays and Happy New Year.  I hope you each feel as well as possible and are able to enjoy many lovely moments. Warm wishes, Kerry