Snow fall quiet

Snow-fall-quiet calls into question everything that went before. 

Do you remember, my daughters, the rabbit we gave you?

You played with her in the summer grass and then left her in her pen and came inside.

 I was angry not because I felt it was your job to remember 

but because it was mine. 

When I felt my anger making you feel ashamed like I already felt that was unfair and that made me ashamed and that made me more angry and it went on from there. 

I took the rabbit out to the grove and I buried it. I cried and shook because of the cruelty of death and her innocence, yes. But because also of my cruelty and your innocence.

But today the snow is falling and it is enforcing silence and it is tamping down the space and time and I want to reach out to you and tell you what I think every parent wants to say:

I’m sorry for all those years I spent making you feel the way I already felt time after time. 

I still feel ashamed.   And yet the snow falls tonight.