Monday, December 26, 2011

Tears......


Christmas was good, Christmas was the way we in in Via Saporetti 27 have made it over the last few years, but this year there were tears - tears from me - on more than one occasion - but all about the same thing really - I cried my way through Christmas Eve managing to do so with no one noticing (until Robert caught me late afternoon) - I was happy and Christmas was good but I was missing England - it happens still at times - then I pulled myself together until I opened the first present - yes, the first present of the year - one of my gifts from the boys - it started with smiles and

then I disintegrated before the children's eyes - a book about a Mother's love - full of photos of women with their babies .....

....fortunately Leo's kilt lifted the evening once again.......(he can always be counted on)

and then yesterday, more tears from me......not in front of the children but about them - about Thomas.........he loves us, he loves his dad but now, at 17 he would rather be anywhere than with us - he isn't obnoxious or unpleasant he just wants to be somewhere else - all the time - and it hurts so bad

so Robert, inadvertently, reminded me of this........

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

And then I dreamt about having another baby........boy am I sick!!

2 comments:

  1. Blimey, that made me sob - start to end !

    Loving them so very much is hard isn't it.

    I'm pleased you found some smiles in Christmas too. A kilt?! In Italy?!

    Should you ever get too homesick please please please come and visit, I'll share enough of England to remind you why you left ;) It would be lovely to have you xxx

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  2. I can totally relate to how you feel. This was the first Christmas where neither daughter was home. It just didn't feel like a real Christmas. The poem made me cry...probably because it's so true. But wait....then comes grandchildren and the world is right again. ;-)

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