This brief offering was submitted to America On Line's "The Book Report," an early e-writing site, more than eight years ago, on January 31, 1997, after a writing invitation. There were no numbered prizes, but I was awarded a newly published book, entitled,
Happily Ever After
I'm shaking with fright but mostly with doubt
As my best man and I join the minister at the altar
All advice about tenderness for my bride the first night
Is suppressed by the anxiety of my own inadequacies
After the ceremony we are to wait five years
Before pregnancy comes at last to the conceiving one
Morning sickness of mother-to-be impossible to share
Nor is the discomfort of carrying a forming human
Primal forces work to extract the mature and determined
From the womb of the baby's total care giver
Birthing washing feeding cuddling and body sharing
Is between newborn and mother during the first hours
How could so much happen with her but not with me
As the loving partnership promised in so many ways
When bad dreams and illness called for comforting offspring
Only a second-best satisfaction from my feeble efforts
The first day of school found me away chasing work goals
While the mother was needed and rewarded as a part of it
But how do I who by nature custom and mores ever find
That closeness that warmth that fullness of sharing fresh life
I dig the moat defend the castle go to war if I must to protect
Those whom I love and cherish as a knight is expected to do
I go on playing my role believing that family love will last
Through our lives and beyond making us -- happily ever after
I agree Bill, that this is one of the best I have read on relationships, love, family and caring. It is too bead that when my first volume of Chrissie is finished, that I will not be able to get it published. This story reminds me of my pre-teen years when I had family love, but not from my mother tho. That family love came from a family that were friends of ours, and my babysitters in Des Moines, Iowa, where I was born. They are the ones who gave me all of the decency that is my soul. They are the ones that cared for and nurtured me. Because of them, I have so much love to give, so much caring and nurturing feelings, that it is a shame I will never be able to bear children. But I have raised 6 children, and I will settle for that. Thnx for sharing this heartfelt and soulful write, Bill. May the Lord Jesus bless you, and those whom you love, and be with you always, and at your side constantly. With much love in my heart, joy to the world, peace on earth, & ((((((((((MANY WONDERFUL SISTERLY HUGGGGSSSS)))))))))), your friend and sister in the written word, Barbie
"If I have to be this girl in me, Then I have the right to be."
Yankee Doodle Daddy is a historical Appalachian Family Saga. The story follows a mother's reckoning as she struggles to survive and keep her four daughters alive.
