I re-read a second one and knew that it – and she – would be the focus of this June Thoughts. Six years ago, Ida Crossan wrote "The Rivers of Our Life" in memory of her mother's 104th birthday. Now, she is bearing the pain of post-stroke-care physical ailments and the pain of watching her husband suddenly deteriorate into needing much assistance and into a loss of will to live.

I envelope her in a hug on Sundays, as do many others. She reminds me of my mother in a way, and in a way this is in memory of my own mother's death 15 years ago this month.

When I was in my early teens and learned to be somewhat proficient with a typewriter, my mother and I went through a box of poems which, over the years, she had clipped from magazines, together with magazine illustrations. We typed the poems onto fresh paper and pasted the illustrations with them, as appropriate. She had Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Splendor Falls on Castle Walls" with an illustration of a bright, turreted castle with sunset's golden colors gleaming on its walls and pennants flying from the points of the turrets. I can still see that image. She had quite a few written by Bliss Carmen, who wrote of nature and living close to the land. An image of an apple orchard laden with red fruit comes to mind. That was my introduction to poetry, typing those poems. All in all, not a bad way to begin.

The Rivers of Our Life

The rivers of our life have many streams
         before they reach the ocean's reams
                   of waves that affect our life –
         some good, some sad, but not all strife –

With thoughts of the past we can
          at last reflect on the loves and
                   joys that cloud our minds
         to weave the patterns weak and
                   strong in kind, and we are blessed
         that they are memories of
                   where we were and where we are
         as they quilt the rivers of our life.
                             Ida Crossan – 1/30/96