Old Business

There was a poem.

A simple, free verse charting of welcome:  Written expectation early in the waiting months, when babies were yet philosophy. During the turmoil and near-tragic misdirection of Kristin’s first days, I quietly retrieved her birth announcement poem from the printer and filed it away in a distant stack of papers in a distant closet.  I knew the pain it would evoke.

Another mistake, or just an extension of the same mistake.  Kristin did not receive the honor of a formal proclamation of her birth.  We were deprived the joy of the flourish of her welcome into our lives and into the lives of our friends and relatives.

There sometimes is kindness in silence and survival in avoidance; but, there is also loss.

Carol eventually exhumed it and gave it a place in the Baby Book.  It is there now—roughly typed and with the printer’s notes about color and print size jotted along its margins.

Fifteen years late; but, why not?
Poems are supposed to last forever.

 

 

Kristin Marie Nichols

Born on

June 7, 1970

to

Robert and Carol Nichols

To Kristin

We welcome you, child.
We shall hold you and watch your
squirming life take form,
we’ll walk with you—tasting and
feeling worlds with you.
We will teach you our songs.
We’ll show you all of the joy and beauty
that we can share.
We will build for you a place in our love.

And hope,
through all of the distances and times
you will see and know,
that we can fulfill our portion
of your needs.

Your Parents