To My Ada Marie ... from Mommy

Motherhood is amazing and yet mysterious ...

There are so many things I will never understand ...

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Like how it is that I could have lived for 26 years before you were born,

and yet, now that you are here, I cannot imagine life without you!

Or how I know there was a lot of pain & fear surrounding your birth ...

but I can barely remember any of it because holding you for the first time brought me more love & joy than I had ever known!

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And to think that there was a time when I had no idea what was going on inside that little mind of yours ...

and now I cannot fathom you without your personality ...

your bubbly, happy, silly, serious, curious, fun-loving, amazing self!

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And most of all, how is it that I could have a daughter who is so different from me in so many ways: fearless, determined, uninhibited, hilarious, wildly-extroverted, incredibly compassionate ... and yet feel that you are literally the beat of my very own heart ...

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I cannot believe that you will be having your fourth birthday soon!

I cannot believe it because it feels like just yesterday I was carrying you inside me...

& I cannot believe it because you have filled my life with more happiness than 4 years can possibly hold!

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i carry your heart with me

(i carry it in my heart)

i am never without it

(anywhere i go you go, my dear;

and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)

i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;

which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

e. e. cummings