To My Daughter on Her 12th Birthday
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed:
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.~The Stolen Child
W.B. Yeats
Ellie.
My first born child.
Today you turn 12! So much bigness! It sounds cliche ( you may need to look that word up) but most cliches spring from repetitive truth, and the truth is that the years have flown by with such speed that I am hardly able to feel it fully. I just can’t. Because yesterday you were placed in my arms, slippery and screaming, after fourteen terrible hours of labor and I beheld your face with awe. The first of our progeny, you taught us how to be parents and we absolutely fumbled through those days as we beheld your perfection with awe. And here you are tomorrow turning twelve. It can’t be so.
You see, what you may not understand for years to come, and maybe even not until you have children of your own is that the first child changes you, It changes you in ways you were totally unprepared for. Maybe you’d bought blankets and clothes and a crib and thought you were ready, but you have no idea until that baby is there demanding your attention every hour. And what a precious gift it has been to give to you, Ellie. Both your father and I fumbling clumsily in the dark at your first cries, what children we were ourselves. And how I peered into your soulful eyes and pondered great and eternal mysteries long wondered as I held and fed you in the dark midnight hours. I grew leaps and bounds in those long days, you grew me, precious child. You taught me. You taught us. In those early days and months we beheld you and we grew in grace and fumbled through each day with love for you and in awe of creation.
My first baby, I remember so many things and forget just as many, but I know that I beheld you with such love that at times I felt I would nearly burst from it all, and yet I didn’t. And that, my dear, is the conundrum of mothers from time immemorial. How on Earth does this love not just kill us, because at times it feels like it just might.
I watched you with the same wide-eyed wonder as you beheld the world and learned the meanings of “cat” and “dog” and “duck”, all animals we had living under our roof at the time. Yes, we had a duck and later a dove and your love of animals after all these years has never been quelled. But of that I am glad, because I hope that you always have compassion and affection for those less powerful and more vulnerable than you, the animals the least of these. I tell you now, as my mother told me, that your current love of animals will ultimately become a great affection for people and you scoff. But I tell you child, that it will be so. God, He works so mysteriously in our hearts, and He is able to cultivate a love so deep that it begins with a dove and ends with a human heart and is no less affectionate but all the more effective. You will begin loving these furry and feathered things as I did and you will end no less loving them but all the more loving the things of flesh and spirit that your creator has loved and died for. All created things are good and beautiful, I pray that I can teach you this bit by bit, day by precious day as we explore with wonder our current island home.
Ellie, as a toddler I held your hand as you learned to walk, and now you hold the hand of your brother as he does the same. You are are more precious than gold. I have watched you grow more tenderly than we have watched our precious peppers grow that we have planted from seed, every day observing and understanding your changes. YOU ARE SO MUCH MORE VALUABLE AND BEAUTIFUL AND ONE OF A KIND. AS much as you delight in your brother, for which you prayed and God so amazingly answered, we delight in you, your heavenly father delights in you. You my precious child are remarkable in your gifts and your servant’s heart. I love how you love and I pray to be more like you in the way selflessly give of yourself to others. You have your father about you there. Bur don’t tell him I said that, ok?
Ellie, I see you. I. See. You. I know what it’s like to be where you are, I remember what a strange and awkward precipice you straddle. You aren’t quite a woman but not quite a girl still either. Hear me, that I remember, even if at times it seems like all I do is yell. I KNOW. I see you and I know, I know your pain and your exact predicament. I was once in the same skin going through the same metamorphosis. It may seem that you feel all alone, but you are never alone, know that you are NEVER alone. You are free to be whatever vestige of child you remain and whatever snips of woman you are becoming, I welcome all of you now. Eery day you change, and I want you to know I see you and I accept you, just as you are and I love you wholly without demand.
Right now, right at this moment you are asleep, because I made you be so, against your will. I think perhaps you may turn out to be night owl like me, and some day that may be a welcome accompaniment to my twilight musings and visions. But for now, you must sleep for your growing brain needs the rest. And my goodness, you are smart! Your intellect surpassed mine and your father’s early on and we marvel at your creativity and skill. Child! Whatever you seek to accomplish, you do! You are a wonder and I pray you do not ever take personal pride in your gifts, but always remain humble and thankful for your many talents and use them to bless everyone in your wake.
Ellie, Oh my Elsbeth Asher, I know you do not like that name, but it is the one I bestowed you and I love it, so I hope that some day you come to love it too. You are so brave, I have watched you fall ten feet from a tree and not flinch. I have watched you break your arm and not cry, I watch you and I marvel. You are a marvel. Be brave to be you. As you grow older and the tether that connects us grows longer, I know that one day it will be severed. At some point, hopefully many years from now, you will be on your own and I pray that everything that we have taught you holds fast in your character just like the hot glue you are so fond of.
Ellie, at this very moment, I ponder you from my desk as you sleep blissfully unaware with a cat you found in a tree many months ago. Some time ago you happened upon my blog, spent hours pouring over old posts, and then asked me why I had stopped writing to you at a certain age. I told you that you had asked me to stop after discovering that the posts were viewable by the public. You seemed sad that I had actually acquiesced to your request and asked me to write to you again. I think that was last year, but I don’t rightly know because so much has happened. Blessed child, do you know that your prayers have culminated in the very birth of your brother, IN WHOM WE DELIGHT DAILY?!?! Never question your preciousness and eternal value. The world works daily to tell you that you are unlovely and not worthy, but I say to you with a confidence backed by ancient words that you are more precious than diamonds and more beautiful than gold, even if you change a hundred times a day. YOU ARE LOVED. YOU ARE KNOWN. YOU ARE ACCEPTED. AS YOU ARE. I SEE YOU. I KNOW YOU. I LOVE YOU.
Ellie now: The year is 2018, I never thought I would live to see the day, and yet here we are. I can hardly imagine the world your children will witness. At 12 you are a prodigy in many areas, you can play music by ear at almost one listen, and you are able to fashion almost anything imaginable out of clay; your artistic talent is remarkable. Perhaps there is some of your grandfather in you.
My first baby I want you to know this in the midst of the chaos of our current life (it won’t always be so) that I don’t miss your excellence, and you are excellent. You are excellent at love, and at preparation ( I want YOU on my camping prep team), and at you are most excellent at loyalty, I pray to be like you.
Most Precious child,
I adore you.
As you used to say at three for things you had affection for, “my eyes are filled with hearts for you”
You are a diamond shining in the darkness.
Mommy
PS.
If these thoughts somehow blow over your current level of understanding, here is a synopsis of my current affections for you:
1) I LOVE how you love your family with the devotedness of a bulldog or German Shepherd. You are loyal like the BEST of the animals!
2) I LOVE how you stay focused on the task at hand until it is completed. You are persistent!
3) I LOVE how you show compassion to even things that don’t deserve it.
4) I LOVE how you see the potential in people DESPITE who they may appear to be.
5) I LOVE how agile you re at climbing trees and building things, you’re like a ballerina architect.
6) I LOVE your willingness to always help. You make my sometimes overwhelming job so much easier.
