Legacy Building 101

Building this legacy for Hannah is as crucial for me as it is for her. Even if I could look into the stars and know for certain that I will be here for Hannah for thousands of tomorrows, the photo scrapbooks, the art-work albums containing every rendering of Hannah's since she stopped eating crayons, and the thousands of pages of journal entries will surely entertain her in future years. Perhaps, after they cease to embarrass her!

I will in future articles share some of the tales recorded in the many journals about Hannah, as I will share some photos too. Also, I will include tips and hints on decorative photo scrapbooking that I teach in my spare time.

For me, I take immense pleasure and solace in knowing that Hannah will have a legacy with her mother who loves her, as I know --only anecdotally-- that my mother loved me.

Finally, I will leave you with a poem I wrote about my mother:

A Woman Unfurled- by Jody Lehrer July 4, 2000

Gathering in the corners neatly of my disquiet life, like near-loosed pages of a rare and wearied book that must be spared from prying foreign fingers.

That singular recollection yet disturbs my nights, wakes me, wrings me out, seeps behind my clenched lids makes me see her frail and wondrous sad, my mother

I cannot conjure up her face or form, only leaden charge that pressed relentlessly indiscriminately, on two small girls

I do not know her grace, the sound of her voice of her laughter, not even, blessedly, her pain, she was a ghost who breathed, a mother's casing

Photographs dismantle myths that she was anecdote, a meloncholy compilation of stories, a near-fiction

Her lovely countenance, skin and mouth of substance, no unwelcome overlay of illness, no translucent veneer of impatient death

She and I engaged, eyes fast-fixed in time on one anothers' face, I am an infant, fingers gently splayed upon her cheek, are you real?

You can read my poems at Themestream.Com, by entering my name into the box.

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