This past summer I co-presided at a memorial service for a man whose young adult daughter read a long poem consisting of statements about her father. It was a fantastic litany of good and bad all jumbled together. This is in that vein, though today was mostly good.

You read with confidence now, and even when you don’t know the word,
you study it, turn it over and under, examine it, measure it against what you know,
take it apart and make friends with it.
Sometimes you let it be,
then come back to it and realize you knew it all along.
You want to be a gemologist, astronomer, archaeologist, volcanologist, and marine biologist,
lamenting, “I just can’t decide.”
You want your own website.
After licking the beaters you always ask to lick the bowl.
When I say ‘no’ you never nag.
You asked about college today.
You want to be close to home, yet you think taking a plane there would be fun too.
We made yarn dolls and you counted in a clear voice
as I wound the yarn around a postcard
with the Sugar Plum Fairy on it.
You measured out the string, snipped it, and tied all the double knots.
My finger holding the knot as you tied was a revelation.
You found an old shoebox where the dolls can live,
and asked me not to throw it out by mistake.
You remember the story I told about my mother doing that.
You didn’t want to go to the grocery store.
Yet you pushed the cart, held the list, chatted like an old friend.
I guess you made a decision to love what is.
I wish I could do that as well as you do.
You saw a cute little boy with a cracked pacifier at the grocery store.
He stood gazing up at you, then gave you a hug.
You smiled but stood stiff while he stared.
Later you said, “When I see cute children like that it makes my eyes water.”