Just read a beautiful reflection on parenthood by writer Rachel Sherman. I remember realizing after our oldest son was born that his pain and his death would crush me in ways that my pain and my death never will.
I would die a thousand deaths to keep my children from feeling theirs.
Categories: Fatherhood, General, Motherhood
So true. You would like this poem, then, I think:
“My Son, My Executioner”, Donald Hall
My son, my executioner
I take you in my arms
Quiet and small and just astir
and whom my body warms
Sweet death, small son,
our instrument of immortality,
your cries and hunger document
our bodily decay.
We twenty two and twenty five,
who seemed to live forever,
observe enduring life in you
and start to die together.
Beautiful. I love Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon. Thanks for sharing.