If I Had a Daughter (Terri Hendrix)

(Click on the picture to view it clearly)

Today is our daughter Sarah's 28th birthday - unlike the poem below, she is not married... but the sentiment is the same ("she made it to here"). As parents, we do our very best to raise responsible, kind, smart, generous, witty and respectful children and sometimes, despite our hard work, for one reason or another, it turns out otherwise - to know that, almost three decades after her birth, our daughter is still a source of pride and blessings is more than my husband and I could hope for, much less be able to verbalize...

We hosted a party for her yesterday, at her request, at our home... and it was a joy to see her friends mingle with her office mates hanging with her boyfriend's buddies - she shone as she greeted, introduced and made everyone feel welcome in the worlds-colliding gathering. We grilled out, we played card/drinking games and we engaged in stimulating conversation - okay, there was football game watching, too!

She has not only survived but she has thrived - we did many things right... but we are also lucky to be able to call this amazing young woman our daughter...

SONG: If I Had a Daughter by Terri Hendrix

BOOK: A Short Guide to a Happy Life by Anna Quindlen

POEM: After Our Daughter's Wedding by Ellen Bass

While the remnants of cake

and half-empty champagne glasses

lay on the lawn like sunbathers lingering

in the slanting light, we left the house guests

and drove to Antonelli's pond.

On a log by the bank I sat in my flowered dress and cried.

A lone fisherman drifted by, casting his ribbon of light.

"Do you feel like you've given her away?" you asked.

But no, it was that she made it

to here, that she didn't drown in a well or die

of pneumonia or take the pills.

She wasn't crushed under the mammoth wheels of a semi

on highway 17, wasn't found lying in the alley

that night after rehearsal

when I got the time wrong.

It's animal. The egg

not eaten by a weasel. Turtles

crossing the beach, exposed in the moonlight. And we

have so few to start with.

And that long gestation—

like carrying your soul out in front of you.

All those years of feeding

and watching. The vulnerable hollow

at the back of the neck. Never knowing

what could pick them off—a seagull

swooping down for a clam.

Our most basic imperative:

for them to survive.

And there's never been a moment

we could count on it.

QUOTE: "Suddenly, through birthing a daughter, a woman finds herself face to face not only with an infant, a little girl, a woman-to-be, but also with her own unresolved conflicts from the past and her hopes and dreams for the future.... As though experiencing an earthquake, mothers of daughters may find their lives shifted, their deep feelings unearthed, the balance struck in all relationships once again off kilter." ~ Elizabeth Debold and Idelisse Malave