For Abby

I don’t know what enabled fates had you enter through my doorway
You were wanted and wished for
Dragged into existence
Kicking and screaming, colicy, jaundiced, days and nights mixed up
Setting you on the window ledge
Watching you sleep, just to check
Only nursing, fearing that whole summer because I could not
Your young lungs true tested all of those long days
Then
Clear big pale green eyes, always watching
Your fear or hatred of water
Bath time battles, like trying to wash a cat
Screams rushing through open windows
Hoping that the neighbors wouldn’t call authorities
Then
Sandy hair soaking in the sunshine, glowing
Stroller walking for hours
Parenting by diversion, hoping beyond hope that I’d open your mind
Reading you just one more story
Somewhere-time musical notes entwined with out shared DNA
Bonded us together, a life long love
Holding your hand the first day of kindergarten
No hesitation as you let go to walk in through that door
That screaming past seemed so long ago
Then
Skipping around the country, you were willing to travel on
Even as your mother and brother weren’t
Social, open to new friends, who were always your best ones
Long haired little girls, smiling as through the sun lived in your teeth
Dancing, swimming, gymnastics, the beginning of a full-contact life
Good-byes and hello’s
Then
You shot the basketball into the hoop
You made all of the stars in school
Your open acceptance of me when your friends asked you why
I was not like the other daddies
You scored all of the firsts from grade school
And this was just the first of firsts
Repeated in high school, repeated in college
Then
It all seems fast-forwarded, your beaming open acceptance
Continue on large pale-eyed traveler
Seeking, searching, questing, learning,
We’re all a better people because of your existence