Blindsided by DNA

So if anything is going to bring me out of my blog hibernation I guess it should be this.

While wandering the house with insomnia the other night I was hit while reading something my daughter wrote harder than if  I had been blindsided by James Harrison. (By the way James….I will miss you dearly. Thank you.)

Given an assignment in English class to write a sonnet about someone that meant something to her, Adeline chose to write about my mother, or “Nana” , which was her grandmotherly title.

I found the following sitting out by the computer and read it out of curiosity.  Needless to say, I lost it.

 

How I love to visit her house each day.

We creatively laugh, cook, dance and sing.

In times of sorrow she knows what to say,

To see my smile she’d try anything.

Decorations are hung for holidays.

She loves her family above all the rest.

Awesome cooking deserves more than just praise.

I adore being held against her chest.

But like all flowers she withered away,

Her memory slowly faded with time.

Now in heaven she hears me when I pray,

Speaking through letters she composed of rhyme.

Nana, I am so lost without you here,

First best friend, I hold our memories dear.                                                            

 

                                                                                                                        Addie Macioce

 

The crazy thing is the only other person I know who could have written anything like this was, in fact, my mother.

She would routinely write me poems like this on holidays or even just a letter left by my pillow when I was down.

I always saw alot of my mother in Adeline……turns out maybe there’s more than I thought……and I don’t think it’s just DNA.

Sort of humbling that this person I held in the middle of the night to get her to sleep is now writing things that can pull a dozen different emotions out of me with a fourteen line sonnet. I don’t think my heart was meant to take all of that in at once…..

 It hurt for a while that night, but then pride took over and I was just in awe.  Both of my kids can do things I can’t do…..or ever COULD do….That’s the kind of thing that’ll stop you right in your tracks. 

I can only hope my mom was half as proud of  me as I am of my kids….but one thing is for sure. Carol is alive and well and all over the place in my house and that is a very reassuring thought. 

If I don’t sign on here before next month, Happy Mother’s Day mom…..I miss you.