What Remains

What Remains
By Lisa A. McCrohan
 

I see now how this life is fleeting.
Every breath,
every time my little ones
wrap their tiny arms around my neck
and shout, “Mama!,” every gleeful plea for
“one more story” at bedtime
is holy

ripe and ready in this moment to savor,
then it is gone.

Like a breeze that flutters the curtains in my room,
kisses my skin on a warm summer night,
then returns to where it came
and only stillness remains -
I see how fleeting my life is.

Suddenly from darkness I am born,
I caress this world with my gentle presence
for only a short while,
then I return to where I came
and I am no more in this form.
What remains?

I want it to be my thousand gentle kisses on
my children’s forehead before going to school,

my slow caress on their backs they’ve felt
a million times as they drift off to sleep,

my voice of steadfast encouragement
at decisive moments to leap and
follow their hearts,

their inner prompting to notice suffering
and respond with compassion
as they’ve seen my hands
and heard my soothing words
hundreds of times on ordinary days,

the everyday moments of me returning to
my holy stillness that slowly filled them –
like sweet, sacred drops of holy water -
with an inner quiet that sustains them
when life shakes them,

the words I’ve whispered into their being
a million times a million times,

“you are my delight.”

 

 

 

This poem, these thoughts have been on my mind lately.  I wonder often, now that Cole is getting older, what will be his first memory of his mama?  What will be the overwhelming "feeling" he has when he remembers his mama during his childhood?

 

What do I want to remain with my children when I am gone?  What do I want them to remember me as?

 

Patient. Loving. Kind.  Gentle.  Understanding.  Empathetic. Passionate.

 

This is what I need to strive for as a mother.