Nicole
Poetry and song inspire higher thoughts; lyrical and appealing but tough to live. Still, inspiration is good. Take this song. It helps me to find a measure of peace with our estrangement from Nicole.. That's hard this time of year. Holidays are rough when you have lost a loved one. Nicole is alive and well but living, by her own choice, disconnected from us. Not a happy circumstance for us and never more painful than on Steve and Nicole's shared birthday, or Christmas. We try to understand. But we don't.

We don't really know Nicole. She's grown up and it's been a long time since she shared herself with us. We long to rediscover the small girl that we loved, and who loved us, within the beautiful woman of today. We yearn to know the adult person she has become. Perhaps when the serpent no longer whispers poison in her ear, we'll get that chance. We don't give up. She sent us a bubble machine for Christmas.
In every iridescent bubble, there is hope. last • next

Your children are not your children
they are the sons and the daughters
of life's longing for itself

They come through you
but they are not from you
and though they are with you
they belong not to you

You can give them your love
but not your thoughts
they have their own thoughts
they have their own thoughts

you can house their bodies
but not their souls
For their souls dwell in
a place of tomorrow
which you cannot visit
not even in your dreams

you can try to be like them
but you cannot make them just like you
you can try to be like them
but you cannot make them just like you