HAPPY BIRTHDAY...A POEM WITH MUCH LOVE

A
WORK IN
PROGRESS…

For Den-Den
Love always and ever Dawn Marie

One child
Daughter
Mother – Sister

Storyteller

Lives in the make believe
World

Marries the make believe
Men

Ignore their pain
Magic – not there…
Ever suffering…

Ever loving

Giving and taking

Just one
Part…

A piece with
Missing pieces

First of the
Ten

She is a work in progress.


One child
Son
Uncle – Brother

Hand first

Never to be a father

Called and became a Father

Always to be a friend

Actor or Artful
Dodger

Linus without his
Blanket or
Adaptations

Does the dresser
Really speak up in
the end?

Just one
Part…

A piece with missing pieces

Second of the
Ten

He is a work in progress.


One child
Granddaughter
Daughter – Niece

Soho

The mother of the brother
Daughter of non-fathers

With the daughter
-not to be a mother

Her daughter is the sister of the brother
-not to be an uncle
With an uncle for a brother

Off beat poet

Fears growing
Old? Up?

Just one
Part…

A piece with
Missing pieces

Last of the
Ten

She is a work in progress.


She started all this
Then
--She left

Yet it continued
Diseased – Ulcerated
Fragmented

No longer One Holy Church

One family, One God

Strong, faith searching
Together

Forgiving, loving
Healing

Just one
Piece

A part of our missing pieces

The beginning
Of the
Ten.

We are a work
In
Progress.

It’s seven o’clock in the morning and as I sit in the quiet with my coffee and cigarette, I decide that it is Thanksgiving, a good time to have a thought or two.

Why do some people call today ‘Turkey Day’? OK yes most people do enjoy a meal of good ole’ Tom. And yes an abundance of the fixings and pie. (I personally don’t care for turkey or ham, but I am craving the Shop Rite canned cranberry sauce and mashed turnips). But today was never meant to be a celebration of food.

Thanksgiving was meant to be a day, set aside by man to not only remember to be thankful for our abundance of turkey, but of our abundance of blessings. It was meant to be a day of prayer and thankfulness for all we have been given. Abundance not only because of our hard work or choices, but because of the abundance God blessed us with each day. We need to remember how much we have been given.

I know who is on my list of ‘readers’. Some of you have forgotten, and some may wonder what have they to be thankful for. A few may even wonder what I have to be thankful for. I can’t answer this question for each of you, but I will tell you just a bit of what I am thankful for.

Garry, my true love, is a gift from God for me! He is healthy and strong. He blesses me by working so he can both provide and allow me to stay home...to take care of our kids, heal, and grow. He is a man of compassion, integrity, and humor! I am so thankful for the way he knows how to teach, play with and protect his family!
I am blessed, I am thankful.

Jason, my first born (homemade), is my gift from God. He is both my student and my teacher. I’m thankful not only because he is my beautiful baby, but because he has been my rock. He saw and understood my mood swings long before anyone else. I could not hide it from him. Yet he loves me despite both what I could and could not control. I am so thankful that I can now watch him grow into the man he was meant to be.
I am blessed, I am thankful.

Jaymie, not only my daughter marriage but daughter by choice, she teaches me so much more than I have hoped to teach her. She is my Tweety. (Tiny sweetie) Shy is both shy and spunky. I watch her stay strong as she embraces her new life with God and her husband by her side,
I am blessed. I am thankful.

Samantha (also homemade), is my greatest joy and my deepest sorrow. She blesses me daily with her strength, stubbornness, and humor. God blessed me with her more than anyone could understand. She made me ‘step up to the plate’. She showed me that I could be “more than a conqueror.” That I could not do everything on my own. That life isn’t fair, but it is good! That we will both be OK on our own. She continually blesses everyone she knows with her mixture of hope and laughter.
I am blessed, I am thankful.

Obadiah, (a child of prayer), blessing everyone he meets with his smile and sensitivity. He taught me to be humble. I learned I couldn’t fix everything if I just loved him enough. I learned from him that children are gifts that we need to give back to God (daily). I am thankful that Obie showed me that I was not in control. I am thankful that he has taught me all of this just by knowing and loving him.
I am blessed, I am thankful.

Georgia, (also a child of prayer not blood) because of her I have learned patience. I prayed so long for her. Being blessed to receive this I again needed some of that patience a necessary tool for a parent of a girly girl. I am thankful that she taught me cheerleaders aren’t what I taught they were. That she taught me that as I dreamed of sugar and spice, she also couldn’t be changed with a bit of love and perseverance. (She will always run screaming away from bugs no matter what I say!) I am blessed by both her outer and inner beauty. Thankful for bringing both giggles and ‘pretty ponies’ into our home. Mostly I am thankful that she doesn’t want to talk about wrestling at the dinner table.
I am blessed, I am thankful.

I could fill a book with all that I am thankful for....Family, friends, a home, washing machines and a diner that can cook a respectable dish of liver and onions!

But I need to stop now and make two vegetables and a desert while trying to remember that although I hate to cook...I can!

Dawn Marie

* Happy Thanksgiving! Most of this note was written two years ago. Much had not changed, much has changed. Yet still…I am blessed. I am thankful.

The wedding part one…

With just a few weeks before this blessed occasion I wanted to strangle my first born! There were none of the tears that I was expecting on a daily basis, but instead the sighs of exacerbation as to how could I have raised a child like this. I really didn’t need this.

With what I suspect was just sheer malice, my sweet and sticky child, my minister of God still refused to put his cereal bowel away! This has been a long running battle of at least 18+ years! You would think he was incapable, obsessed with the notion that cereal bowls belong on the floor next to the couch. I tried to remind him that if he was old enough to get married he was old enough to put the offending bowl in the sink (better yet dishwasher), but my words were in vain. Yes I know that in those early formative years I should have made him eat at the table, but I can’t resist his smile.

With just a few weeks to go his room was still uninhabitable. Most of his Stuff should have been packed away by now. The refrigerator unplugged for years now should have been carted off to the dump! (Three months latter it is in front of my craft supplies and everyone is still afraid to open it)

Only a few more weeks to go and still his is auguring with me as to the tackiness of the decorations that I planned for this special event …but that is for the wedding part two…

How can silence be so loud?

We all know what happened to that loose lipped Irish man, what a story, was he the victim or the bad man? What a story, is it true?

Oh the pain that caused his family, do you think it hurt him or his family more?

What was not said spoke so loud.

“How long has it been?”
not long enough.

“Where is…. I haven’t heard”
Safe, we cried last month

“Can you believe what I heard….”
No I can not. The silence is too loud.

The pain of faces speaks of the silent yelling in their ears. It echos, as we do not hear.

“you did not come last time, I looked for you.” That is why I did not come.

Smiles hiding gritted teeth and never a shoe tossed with such importance.

But where are the others… no that’s right they do not exist. If silence did not survive then neither did they, did our family not at least learn that. ‘Oh how your family has grown!’ and only the eye searches out the sibling not there. Relief, fear, anticipation what was that twinkling?

They don’t exist, they can not hurt me, they can not tell.

How can silence be so loud?

We all know what happened to that loose lipped Irish man, what a story, was he the victim or the bad man? What a story, is it true?

'Oh the pain he caused his family, do you think it hurt him or his family more?

The family took the true pain. Silence broken set him free. He will never be here again’ and He smiles in a better place. Those that could not be there are his companions now. They will talk again but the pain is less as they think on the many that went.

How can silence be heard with so many voices? It echos as we do not hear.

Authors…hmmm

The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Ten authors who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first ten you can recall in no more than ten minutes. Tag at least ten friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing what authors my friends choose. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your ten picks, and tag people in the note.)

This was sent to me by a few of my favorite people on Face book but as hard as I tried I thought too much about it.

Unpublished Poets that changed me with their written words that I have kept each piece in my special wooden box,

1. Braswell (eyes of blue and green declaring that they have love)
2. Stewart (she has to fly…)
3. Parker (blind us with you imagery)
4. Sugar (I love you)
5. Jay (thank you for teaching me the world is safe)

Published poets whose poems I love because I wanted to write just like them.

1. Emily Dickinson (I’m nobody who are you)
2. Ogden Nash (I never saw a purple cow…)
3. Robert Frost (I took the road less travel by…)
4. Max Ehrmann (Desiderata - you are a child of the universe)
5. Rudyard Kipling (And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!)

Song writers whose words were penned to music that changes me in so many different ways that sometimes I just can’t get them out of my head.

1. Queen (sail away sweet sister)
2. Queen (fat bottom girls)
3. Pink Floyd (comfortably numb)
4. ? (Disco duck)
5. Joan Biaz (forever young)

Screen Play written whose names I wish I knew: they sold there work so I can remember those quiet hours that mark different times of my life.

1. Forest Gump
2. Breakfast Club
3. Beloved
4. I am Sam
5. Aristocats

Fiction books that I just love and believe that everyone should read at least once. They will stay in you heart and forever, I promise just try to read them and then forget them.

1. Robert Munsch (I’ll love you forever)
2. Shel Silverstein (The giving Tree)
3. C.S. Lewis (Scewtape letters)
4. J. R. R. Tolkien (The Hobbit)
5. Max Lucado (The crippled lamb)

The best Non Fiction author of all. I pick up his book almost everyday, think about him almost hourly. Only author who I love to attend book clubs about at least weekly, often more. Has he influence me more than I could ever explain. But go ahead and try me…we all know I am opinionated.

1. God (Song of Solomon)
2. God (Leviticus)
3. God (Luke)
4. God (Romans)
5. God (Obadiah)

I kept each list to five because unlike all the authors above I need to learn to edit myself a little, :0)

Gotcha Day…Ok I made it up, but if the greeting card folks can do it then so can I.

I have two children that I have not had the pleasure of attending their ‘birth’ day. I missed out on the knife in the stomach labor pains and stitches where no one should have stitches. But then again after those 17 min of hard labor with Jason (two hours for Sammi) I have come to the conclusion that I never really thought my presence should have been required. I have tried to explain to my homemade kids that there actual ‘Gotcha Day’ was September 3rd and November 13, but neither really cared to hear anything about it! (They were born in June and August) Although Georgia and Obadiah like to celebrate my holiday,

Today is my oldest son’s Gotcha Day…18 years ago we went to the airport to pick up this little boy. He saw me, ran and jumped into my arms… calling me Mama. From that moment he was mine. You can’t convince me any different. Although over the years a few of you have tried. There was no pregnancy, morning sickness or kick the kidney games. There were no sleepless nights because of 2am feeding, no diapers, no first words. Just another beautiful child to love forever.

Just as special, just as scary, just as awesome. Mostly just as hard to explain to someone who hasn’t given birth either thru their body or their heart.

What I didn’t know in ’87, ’88 and ’91. Was the labor pain were just beginning for me. The morning sickness and kick the kidney games would make way for, sick with worry and kick the heart games. That sleepless night would become a way of life. And I would often wonder why anyone would want to hear the words come out of their mouths.
Ok one of them has not grown out of the diaper stage but then again Samantha never gives me those looks of disbelief that she could be related to me.

These children of ours are so very different and so much alike in that they all can make me wonder what I would ever do without them. Then wonder can I do about them. They showed me the true meaning of “Because I said so…” as well as ‘I will love you forever’

So here’s to Gotcha Day…the days I celebrate the joy and fear that I felt when… a Doctor, a flight attendant, and a Judge changed my life forever.