A childhood book, where parents sew on buttons,
repair zippers, change a tire, repair a wagon,
sew a doll’s arm on, make a new chair leg,
doctor cuts or get a doctor for sick children,
We learn to trust parents and others who earn it,
and it doesn’t stop at childhood. A sister’s mother-in-law
once told her, “You Breedlove girls think your parents can do anything.”
It wasn’t true, though. I knew Daddy could do most things
but not hulahoop, cast with stinkbait on the hook, remember names
or put my Timex watch back together. But we quoted often,
“Fix it, please.” Am I still doing that, as the eldest within the
third degree of consanguinity? Well, sometimes, yes.
but now i try to make my requests, “God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.”
And, “Not my will but yours be done.”