HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

V. I wish I had known you then...the beautiful blonde with the lovely shoes.

Surrounded by your sisters, you can see them leaning in, knowing you were the strong one.

I wish I had known what you talked about with them and others...boys or men, what you loved,

what you didn't.

I wish I had known what life was like for you...before me.

I wish I had known you when you were born.

I wish I could have held you then.

You were more than my mother, you were a child, a girl, a young woman, a bride.

Yet I only knew you as one...my mother.

How limited that is, when one is so large.

I might have understood you better and laughed with you more.

We were so alike and yet so different.

And that is why I love you for being who you were and still are to me.

So today we will wear our pearls and we will all be children, and girls and young women and brides...

and for those of us who are mothers let's tell our children who we were before them.

And let's not limit our largeness.

A little bird has come to sit with me and is whispering in my ear

'Your mother never leaves you...just look around

I am everywhere you go"