letting go . . .

There are moments when I feel as if I have somehow missed my children’s entire infancies.

Like I can’t remember them crawling or nursing or being seven pounds little.

When I see that wee baby in her mother’s arms at church

and I cannot call to mind London that minuscule.

What Piper Finn looked like at three months old feels like a mystery or how Hawkeye smelled after a bath when I held him in my arms wrapped in a towel.

I can’t remember.

And I think sometimes that I lean to bitterness,

to regret,

to shame.

And I know

I cannot give these thoughts a foothold,

a place.

Because all my regret does not preserve me.

It cannot save my today

nor rescue my tomorrow.