Soon,
the clock
will find midnight again.
The seventeenth
will fold itself
into the eighteenth,
and the world
will behave
as though
nothing important
has happened.
There will be dishes
to wash.
Children
to tuck into bed.
Messages
that need answering.
The ordinary work
of being alive.
And I will do it.
Because I have learned
that surviving
does not mean
leaving you behind.
But tonight,
before the date changes,
I want one more moment
that belongs
entirely to you.
Not to the grief.
Not to the years.
Not to everything
we never got
to experience.
Just you.
The little girl
who made me
a mother
to a daughter
for the very first time.
The child
I carried.
The baby
I loved.
MaKenna.
Eleven years
have passed
since your beginning.
And somewhere
inside the woman
I am now,
there is still
a mother
on that first October morning,
meeting her daughter
and not yet knowing
how terribly
she will miss her.
I wish
I could reach
through those years
and give her
one more moment.
But since I cannot,
I will do
what I have done
for eleven birthdays.
I will love you
through another
tomorrow.
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