"April Showers" and "If I Could" from KIDNAPPED TWICE

APRIL SHOWERS…TEARS

The month of April is a sad month for me. My grandmother died in April; my father’s birthday and my grandmother’s birthday both fall in April. Both are now dead.

Every April 9th, I have a small hope that my grandmother’s spirit will come to visit me again. She does not, but I feel especially close to her during this time.

I have started to remember different things that happened during those years. For a long time, as a child, when I awoke in the morning, I would not open my eyes, as my eyelids would be stuck together. I would cry for my grandmother, and she would bring warm water and medicine to swab my eyelids with until they could be opened.

The day my grandmother got her finger caught in a meat grinder, I was there. The day she fell off the stone wall, I was there. Coincidentally, my middle finger was the one that I had half taken off by the apple machinery, and her middle finger was the one of grandmother’s fingers made longer and useless by her meat grinder.

I truly miss both Aunt Jennie and Grandma as much today as when they passed away. I hope I get to see them again in heaven.

My grandmother’s flowers make me smile in April. I had dug them up and planted them here, and now they are breaking ground.

Wildlife is starting to nest in the floats that have shelters on them in the pond. I look forward every year to seeing the new chicks swimming in the pond. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to see their very first swim. When the chick won’t jump into the water, the mother duck will give it a push so that it gets in. Then she proudly swims all of the chicks over to me to show me her new family, which makes me smile.

It’s a beautiful Earth we live in, if people would just stop, look, and listen. It is, and always has been, fascinating to me.

“IF I COULD”

There is something I have kept to myself for many years. When my son and his future wife picked a date for their marriage, I had always loved a song called “If I Could,” which was a mother’s song to her child. I started practicing the song and wanted my fear of singing in front of people to lessen, so that I could do this for my son.

I was very nervous just practicing, but I wanted to get past the fear and do the best job on the song for my son that I could. When I felt I had the song ready for the bride-to-be to hear, I had her come to my house to listen to it. I sang the song for her. Her reaction was that the song had nothing to do with her, so she did not want me to sing it! I did not sing it, but I do want to write some of the words here so that my son can read them some day:

Lyrics by Celine Dion

If I could,

I’d protect you from the sadness in your eyes,

Give you courage in a world of compromise.

Yes, I would.

If I could,

I would teach you all the things I’ve never learned

And I’d help you cross the bridges that I’ve burned.

Yes, I would.

If I could,

I would try to shield your innocence from time,

But the part of life I gave you isn’t mine.

I’ve watched you grow

So I could let you go.

If I could,

I would help you make it through the hungry years,

But I know that I can never cry your tears,

But I would,

If I could.

If I live

In a time and place where you don’t want to be

You don’t have to walk along this road with me.

My yesterday

Won’t have to be your way.

If I knew,

I’d have tried to change the world I brought you to,

And there isn’t very much that I can do,

But I would,

If I could….      

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We are almost done serializing here the memoir Kidnapped Twice, by Mary E. Seaman and myself, published by Outskirts Press this year and available from OP and amazon.com and bn.com and other on-line booksellers in ebook and paperback formats. A mature woman continues to wrestle with the damage done to her as a child.