Sweet Hugs and Kisses, Protection and Bliss

What is it about children that tear at your heart
Is it a curse being a Mom
We give them everything...as much as we can
Its never enough, not our love nor our time
We have precious little as we stumble half blind
Hurrying and striving to do all that we can
The dishes, the laundry, the cooking and gardening
The homework, their projects, plays, puppies and camping...
Hundreds of cookies, dozens of pies, butter cream frosting, cakes a mile high...
Pink Easter baskets, chocolate eggs, bright jack o' lanterns, paper mache'...
And what of those Christmases not long ago...hand made stockings, glittering cones,
Bedtime stories, prayers and a kiss
Promising always protection and bliss...

Then divorce like disaster takes hold of your life
In the blink of an eye nothing is right
No money for goodies, no time to bake pies...
No skating, no dancing, they give it all up
Yet you all forge onward working so hard
Struggling to make it, great sacrifice
And just when you thought you all might have a chance
Growth spurts ahead, rebellion a chant

They watch and they need you, perhaps more than before
And a year, then two passes and suddenly grown
They begin to embrace their own private lives...
Conversations gets harder, communication more strained
The fear in their eyes colder, pain harder to bear
And those innocent faces once overflowing with joy
Seem distant, demanding and so very lost

You wonder what happen, where you messed up
Instead of closer, you've all moved apart
Work always consumes you, time's not on your side
Something has severed, some bond, some tie
And no one is listening when you try to talk
The subject too tender, the memories too harsh

You must have failed them,

And, somewhere along the line
You didn't pay enough attention
You didn't listen to your heart
You tried to understand the questions
You tried to heal all their wounds
You wanted to be a pillar of strength
You were a fool to have tried

Too long you had waited...too long you had dreamed
Until the child in you retreated
Until the child in you gave up
You began to let go of them
As they warned you to do
You prepared yourself for the inevitable...Can such love ever last

So you Lifted them higher,

Prayed the moon to keep their hearts.

And summoned forth your brother...Oh wind do gently keep them!
And you whispered to the moon
You prayed for their safe keeping
You wished the earth to heal their wounds
You let them be as they had begged you
You turned to your music, your dance and your art.

They could not understand you
They could not follow in your steps
Your muse, your inner magic, your need to heal
Still you went forward day after day
Fighting the good fight, lighting their way
Trying to help them the best that you could

Perhaps non of them saw it, perhaps non of them cared
For where was their Mommy
Oh, where had she gone
Who's sweet hugs and kisses had kept back the dark
No, not this half stranger too busy to see
That non of it mattered, perhaps such dreams never did...