HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRIAN!

While I am writing this, Brian will turn 31 (8:17 AM). In honor of this occasion, I want to share a poem I discovered yesterday in one of the books at Grandma's condo. I found a wonderful book of poems published in 1888 by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Please bear with the 19th-century language and realities (a nurse for the baby?!?).
INEVITABLE

Today I was so weary and I lay
In that delicious state of semi-awaking,
When baby, sitting with his nurse at play,
Cried loud for "mama," all his toys forsaking.

I was so weary and I needed rest,
And signed to nurse to bear him from the room.
Then, sudden, rose and caught him to my breast,
And kissed the grieving mouth and cheeks of bloom.

For swift as lightning came the thought to me,
With pulsing heart-throes and a mist of tears,
Of days inevitable, that are to be,
If my fair darling grows to manhood's years;

Days when he will not call for "mama," when
The world with many a pleasure and bright joy,
Shall tempt him forth into the haunts of men
And I shall lose the first place with my boy;

When other homes and loves shall give delight,
When younger smiles and voices will seem best.
And so I held him to my heart tonight,
Forgetting all my need of peace and rest.


In doing a bit of research, I found that shortly before this poem was published, her only child, a son, had died as an infant. Since my "fair darling" has lived well for 31 years, I share this poem--not because I have any need to return to those early years of being "first place," but as an encouragement to all of you as parents of such fair darlings.