Growing Up In Oz

“I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)
I fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)I want no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)”
― E.E. Cummings

“Mommy, I don’t want you to go to work. I want you to stay home and play with me.”

The words stung. I wanted to change back into comfortable clothes, dump out the bin of blocks and play with my girls.

“But you love your new school,” I said back to her in the most cheerful and excited voice I could muster. “You have all of your new friends to see & school is SO MUCH FUN.”

“But mommy, I want to stay home with you.”

I choked back my first tears since I started back to work and hugged her. I knelt down and took her hands in mine. I looked her in the eyes and said that I’m always with her & she’s always with me.

I explained to her as best as I could that although mommy is at work I still think about her & Hannah all day long. I told her I have pictures of her in my office and I talk to people about her often.

And then I told her she could do the same thing. She can think about when mommy plays with her and she can talk to her friends and teachers about things we do at home.

She smiled and I wondered if what I told her was too deep. Perhaps I should have just told her that she has to go to school and left it at that. I worried that she saw too much emotion from me. Perhaps she picked up on the tears in my eye and thought that she should be sad too.

And then my doe-eyed little blonde look right at me and said “Mommy, it’s just like when I remember things in my dreams.”

“Yes sweet girl, it sure is. It’s just like remembering things in your dreams.”

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