Pictured: Rachel and her towering teen (who still loves his mama even though he hates her rules)

Written on October 16, 2023 through October 26, 2023

I had three new clients in my private practice and a three hour professional presentation to give this week, so naturally my time was so tight that I … wrote a poem.

I write poetry now?

I have never been especially drawn to poetry, although memorizing “Two roads diverged …” in junior high has always stuck with me.

But there is something about a cadence and rhyme that bids to me so I’m trying to answer the call.

Autumn reminds me of my mother because her birthday, cancer diagnosis, ineffective treatment, and death fell between September and November of the year she turned 60. I’ve never really forgiven the fall since then, with its nippy nights and reluctantly-lit mornings. The colors provide limited redemption, though I appreciate their effort through the wind and rain. Also, spiders.

I tried to make friends again with October last year. It had been 20 years since my mom had died and it began unseasonably warm. Then, exactly 20 years after my mom was diagnosed with cancer, my husband was diagnosed with cancer and October could continue to just suck it.

A year later, I am trying to forgive again as I have found new purpose and light. Memories are morphing to lessons, sparking ideas, and fueling my pen.

So alas, here is my poem:

Love Lesson

When mothers are gone and daughters are left

To figure out life on our own,

We tumble and twist to our thoughts and our deeds

Like we’d never been left all alone.

We ponder and ask and observe those around

And we search for the secrets unknown;

We hunt for the answers from women who live

And we look for the signs of seeds sown.

We wonder if ever we’ll get something right

When our babies are fragile and new,

When sleep fleets in moments of daylight and dark

And fussing is all the babes do.

We wonder again when the babes become kids

Who play rough and throw sand and won’t eat.

Are we doing it right? Would we make our moms proud?

Our thoughts stalled by waves of defeat.

Onward kids grow ’til they tower o’er our heads;

They’re teenagers eating and growing.

They give hugs from above us and prove every day

That they’re right, and in fact, they’re all-knowing.

They push us away, then draw to us close

Like a coaster that dives sky to ground;

They cry on our shoulders when life’s done them wrong

When deep sorrows creep up all around.

That’s as far as I am, though I know they’ll grow more

And my questions won’t end as they do.

As the seasons change colors and old wounds get healed

My mothering grows a bit too.

I learn about patience and balance and grit

As I watch, now, the kids whom I taught.

My role changes daily from helper to helped

By those babies the midwife once caught.

These lessons I desperately needed from Mom

That I hoped could be sent from above

Have come from the humans I nurtured along

As they taught me to raise them with love.

Though surely it’s harder on some days to stay

As calm and low-key as I’d like.

When anger shoots over the edge of my cliff

When I yell (in my head), “Take a hike!”

I remember my mother whose patience was thick;

Her forgiveness was rampant and clear,

And these grown kids who share their wise words when I’m low

When they know just what I need to hear.

So when mothers are gone and daughters are left

To figure out life on our own,

Remember, sweet mamas and daughters alike,

We were never completely alone.

As our mothers taught us and as we taught our babes,

Despite some lessons feeling so tough,

Our teachings have come back full circle to say

That forgiveness and love were enough.