PHILODENDRON

I am thinking about your birthday again.
As I always do, especially at this time.
For, you were the new beginning as a baby.
Even in the womb.
I talked to you all across America.
As we drove to Ohio to your Father's promising job,
A Philodendron was between my ankles and knees.
Everything seemed so uncertain and scary.
Your father had not married me yet.
But I knew that with your new life,
you would bring joy, in the same way
your life inside me brought hope.
I was afraid of the leaky tailpipe
and I watched the flower for wilting
even as I whispered to you
as the night turned to day turned to night
with the window open to give you fresh air,
just in case the fumes would hurt you.
22 hours that way!
Worrying about what it might do to you.
Oh, my wonderful life, my love of new beginnings.
And, you are more wonderful than anything
and anyone in this world could have imagined.
If all of life were a leaky tailpipe,
you would still bring life to it!
And, soon . . . .
standing with little Kevin, the very pregnant me
before the pulpit in distant Gallipolis,
your Father finally said, "I do."
And, my two babies had a sound foundation.
You made me insist upon that choice.
I wanted my new, wonderful daughter to have
a true father. And, so you brought life too
to your brother. My Princess.
How can anyone so small and new and unprotected
in the truest sense . . . cause so much good
to happen in the life of her family!
This is why I named you Pamela after Pamela Cushing
the kindest, gentlest person I knew growing up.
She had a good word for anyone and everyone.
And named you as well after the great grandmother Clausen
for the gift of ancestors carried on in you.
Then, what would you one day do as a youth?
Create a geneology. A miracle again!
Because, this pearl of perfection is YOU,
my Daughter. And, I think about this
especially now . . . and always.
Remember, how you rocked newborn Jessica
her first time home in that pink wooden
rocker we set on the lawn. I have the picture!
That was her first welcome home from the family.
This is your role: to be the one
who generates new life,
in everyone,
as in the birthing phone tape I kept
of the new life of Bess . . . .
crying together, all we three, this makes tears
pop up in happiness, even now . . . .
my gifted baby, . . . you
watering plants and drawing princesses
and stitching an ever-growing quilt
of treasured memories
around her all of her life . . . .
making beautiful hope for everyone
especially, for those she loves!
My flowering daughter!
A helpless baby no more.