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Now is a great time to check out my new book, Letting Go and New Beginnings: A Mother’s Poetic Journey, about healing relationships.
50% off until the end of July!
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Expressing the essence of being a mother, a line often comes to mind from my poem, “After You Left” in Letting Go and New Beginnings (For entire poem see post 37 on 3-29-11 )
“Constantly
I am watching out for you.
Even when I am not watching,
I am watching.”
“Even when I am not watching, I am watching…” Even when I need my own life, I gather my “chicks” now grown, under my wing. I can’t help it. Even if I struggle for balance and need to take better care of myself, if they need me, I want to be there for them.
What is the most important thing we want to teach our children? How do we free them to go out and live their lives fully? How do we transition to a more adult level relationship with our offspring, the foundation for the rest of our lives? How clearly can our children ever see us as real people?
Here is another poem about being a mother.
1/19/03
From birth
letting go
and letting go,
letting go.
If I have taught you anything
let it be this:
kindness.
Striving, yes
but be generous.
I let you go
and heal from the wound
and then you return
as promised
and gradually I adjust
and trust.
Then you leave
as I know you must
and I am filled with longing and sadness.
Letting go,
letting go
the greatest gift,
not to hold and define and smother,
but to see you writ large
by your own hand.
And I am always
your mother,
not a strange mythological creature
who tames dragons and rides unicorns,
but a woman
of flesh and bone.
Not frozen artistic perfection,
a marble statue unchanging, beautiful,
but a work in progress,
the same as you.
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2003
From Letting Go and New Beginnings: A Mother’s Poetic Journey
As I wrote before, my mother-in-law, Rae, died in March. It felt very strange this first Mother’s Day without her. I kept thinking to remind my husband to call. It looked like my Mom might also be wrapping up her life, but she is strong in so many ways and she rallied. On Mondays after my voice lesson I call her. We both consciously treasure our wide-ranging conversations—for however long we have. (I sent her tulips.) Two recent poems about her.
2/14/11
Even close to the end,
eyesight failing,
words dropping out of her repertoire,
she looked to the west
over the building tops
from her apartment balcony
appreciating, savoring,
thoroughly enjoying a magnificent sunset,
full of vivid description
of the flaming band of clouds
that spanned the horizon,
filled with the grace of it, the joy.
And even a day later
would see it still in her mind’s eye
and tell her poet daughter
400 miles away, who could then
see it also…and enjoy…and write….
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2011
2/17/11
At some point
often a phone call in the night
and someone you love
is gone. Right now
all I’m saying
is the beginning of the end.
And if I cling to the notion,
the belief, that life is eternal,
still I am aware
it ends in this form
and there will be…soon…
one last hug, one last conversation.
As much as I try
not to think about it,
to be in the moment
where you still are,
still I cry softly
when I consider
you not being here.
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2011
Today was my Dad’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad! No one alive knows any more the truth or myth of the family story that his mom tried to hold off his delivery until after April Fools Day, 1925. But babies come when they are ready and even a very stubborn German lady might not be able to pull that off!
He died in 1985, (when my son was just shy of one year old). He was 60, the age I am very aware of approaching. And very aware of how young that was, how much I have left I want to do. In 2009 I posted some poems for his birthday. Here are a few more.
10/5/08
My strapping Dad buying
a couple big, unsplit,
possibly ripe, whole ones
for the extended family reunions.
Chill and wrap in layers of newspaper
to keep cool in summer heat.
Slippery wet black seeds
could be pinched between thumb
and forefinger,
shooting some distance
into park crabgrass
or spit, with juice
running down the chin,
face a satisfied grin.
Yes, that watermelon,
sometimes salted half-moon slices
or quarters for the youngest
(don’t eat below the pink part!)
treats in the hot season,
limited availability then.
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2008
7/18/10
My uncle died last week,
my Dad’s only brother,
I was not that close to him
so the intensity of my grieving
ambushed me.
But he represented my father,
gone these 25 years,
and he represented my past, my childhood,
my tribe, my clan (all that expectation).
All the memories wrapped up in one man.
He represented all the aunts and uncles beginning to pass on
and my mother, waiting in line.
I am from Michigan people who gathered
and stayed together, supported each other.
And I left them to find myself—
the gain in that decision
greater than the loss, but there was loss nevertheless,
any connection to them from a distance.
Any relationship of my children to them,
more fragile and tenuous.
(My children did not grow up with
extended family at every important occasion.)
And now that my Dad’s brother is gone…
no more chances for understanding.
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010
My father was a complex man and we had our troubles growing up, but I am grateful for many things, the lessons I continue to learn from him. This poem was written as part of body-mind-emotion-spirit energy healing work I did with Tricia Eldridge (founder of Energy Touch School for Advanced Healing in Michigan) to deal with recurring abdominal weakness and other persistent health issues.
12/1/09
My Dad came this time,
invited to participate,
to undo what had been done,
to take back what had been said,
lodged in my gut but rightfully
belonged to him.
She said he struggled with it,
but kept on until the dark mass,
that chain and ball or anchor?
who knows, not mine,
but his, and now returned to him,
leaving me lighter, healing.
He died 24 years ago,
I have worked hard
over and over to heal and forgive.
Last week he showed up
clearer than ever—in a good way—
sitting at our old Formica kitchen table,
cutting giblets and celery for stuffing
the Thanksgiving turkey.
Was that his ethereal gold form
standing last night in my room?
Did he choose to come help
or did I call him…or both…or neither?
Just the right timing,
you know how this works:
what is ready to be healed
come up to the surface.
However painful, allowing the feeling
releases the hold.
Still true,
still true.
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2009
Some surprises are welcome and others not. Recently we have had some of both. My husband and daughter went to Michigan to see his mother, who was in failing health. They had a wonderful visit at the hospital, though it was clear she was declining. When they were almost home, a call came that she had died. Last Monday we came back from her funeral. (In the first week of January, Stephen’s Dad, who had been very hardy, slipped on the ice in his driveway and died in the hospital days later.) They were both in their eighties and we were aware time with them was getting short, so we had made more trips than usual to Detroit last year. Still there is no way, really, to prepare, and losing both parents so quickly is especially hard. My way of coping was, as usual, to write. Here is a poem about my mother-in-law, Rae.
3/16/11
I can picture her standing there
in front of the living room picture window
small, fragile, vulnerable, frail,
wearing her tan jacket
and matching tan pants,
her hair done just so,
and I gave her a hug and said
we’d soon see her again
knowing it was nearing the end.
And today was the end
of that complex book,
the last page of dialog written
in a grace-filled hospital room
with loved ones gathered around.
All she needed to slip away
more or less easily, graciously, consciously.
To say and hear “I love you,” to laugh,
to be herself. To wrap up long life,
to breathe the last sacred breath…
and go.
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2011
When preparing his mother’s eulogy, Stephen unexpectedly turned to my new book, Letting Go and New Beginnings: A Mother’s Poetic Journey. Over the 16 years of my poetry writing, Stephen has supported me in many ways. Often I read to him poems that I wrote for him. But typically he does not read my poems on his own. This time he was looking for something that would express the mother’s voice—in a sense speak for his mother—and amazingly he thought of my book to find something that fit. These are the three poems he chose to read in the course of his eulogy. I love my poems being used, in that sense, a good surprise.
1/20/06
In a sense
I have not allowed myself
to let go
of your small hand in mine
as we cross the busy street,
although I know you are ready
and you know you are ready.
Perhaps guilt over sometimes
letting you cry, when I
needed my own life,
but felt stuck in the apparent
confines of caring for two small children
—the life I had,
a life I had chosen.
But now, do you see it too?
It is time to let go
and walk side by side as equals,
each as tall as the other,
each as weak and as strong,
each sometimes needing a hand.
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2006
7/1/06
You want me to be there
when you want me to be there,
and to disappear when
you are no longer—
presumably temporarily—
interested.
How fair is that? And,
that is OK with me…
up to a point.
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2006
2/24/08
Constantly
I am watching out for you.
Even when I am not watching,
I am watching.
I cannot say why this is true
or when it began,
it feels like forever
my love.
So do me a great favor
and become…not less carefree
nor less careless,
nor even more careful,
for being full of care
is not it exactly.
Be more aware of your choices,
more in tune with your inner wisdom.
For you are wise
dear one.
And if I am selfish
and want you to stay with me
when it is clearly time to go,
forgive…
and go.
Call me when you arrive.
I will be waiting.
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2008
To read a sample of Letting Go and New Beginnings and the new lovely review go to https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/39211
When we save things our babies have outgrown to later pass on to our kids for their babies, it means more than just the things themselves. They symbolize the dreams we have for our children, our wish to be part of their lives, and our desire to support them. Here are two poems about things I saved to pass on and what happened to those plans.
As expectant parents in 1984 we wanted everything to be perfect for our baby. This first poem is in my new eBook, Letting Go and New Beginnings: A Mother’s Poetic Journey.
11/20/06
I painted this chest of drawers
when I was big with my firstborn.
I chose the handles of yellow, red, green, and blue.
I drilled new holes, putting wood dowels and wood putty
into the old holes, lovingly sanding smooth.
I added a white, coated-wire shelf
and screwed it onto the side to hold
the powder, cream, and baby wipes.
I sewed a green cover for the pad to act as changing table.
And after he was born this is where we changed him.
This dresser moved with us to the new house
and has been in his closet as he grew. Twenty-two
years he is now and gone to an apartment in the city,
no place here or there for this white chest.
We are ready to let it go with a blessing
to a hopeful family crossing the ocean,
welcoming them to the beginning here of their new life.
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2006
The second poem was prompted by the news: a law passed that cribs with side rails that went down were unsafe and could no longer be sold. Since cribs are used for such a short time, most cribs are bought second hand or passed down. When I was pregnant with my son, we picked out a really good crib with matching dresser that would be used for both our babies and handed down the generations. After saving it in the basement for 23 years, this week that crib went out with the trash. What else could we do with it, in good conscience, but let it go?
3/6/11
(as best we can)
The crib that we choose with deliberate care
has now been determined and declared
unsafe for all babies—or some—
even though the slats were closer,
even though we entrusted our two new ones
to its nighttime enclosure with the bumper pads
of bright cars or pink buds with lace, matching comforters.
Now it cannot in good conscience be saved
for grandchildren yet unconceived.
It could be kept as a souvenir
of lost sweet baby days, but what would be the point?
Let it go forevermore
bless what use we had of it
what love surrounded those precious lives
just then at their beginning…
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2011
What have you let go this week? And why?
