Category Archives: family

Surprises of Both Kinds

Some surprises are welcome and others not. Recently we have had some of both. My husband and daughter went to Michigan to see his mother, who was in failing health. They had a wonderful visit at the hospital, though it was clear she was declining. When they were almost home, a call came that she had died. Last Monday we came back from her funeral. (In the first week of January, Stephen’s Dad, who had been very hardy, slipped on the ice in his driveway and died in the hospital days later.) They were both in their eighties and we were aware time with them was getting short, so we had made more trips than usual to Detroit last year. Still there is no way, really, to prepare, and losing both parents so quickly is especially hard. My way of coping was, as usual, to write.  Here is a poem about my mother-in-law, Rae.

3/16/11

Rae’s Last Day

I can picture her standing there
in front of the living room picture window
small, fragile, vulnerable, frail,

wearing her tan jacket
and matching tan pants,
her hair done just so,

and I gave her a hug and said
we’d soon see her again
knowing it was nearing the end.

And today was the end
of that complex book,
the last page of dialog written

in a grace-filled hospital room
with loved ones gathered around.
All she needed to slip away

more or less easily, graciously, consciously.
To say and hear “I love you,” to laugh,
to be herself. To wrap up long life,

to breathe the last sacred breath…
and go.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2011

When preparing his mother’s eulogy, Stephen unexpectedly turned to my new book, Letting Go and New Beginnings: A Mother’s Poetic Journey. Over the 16 years of my poetry writing, Stephen has supported me in many ways.  Often I read to him poems that I wrote for him. But typically he does not read my poems on his own. This time he was looking for something that would express the mother’s voice—in a sense speak for his mother—and amazingly he thought of my book to find something that fit. These are the three poems he chose to read in the course of his eulogy. I love my poems being used, in that sense, a good surprise.

1/20/06

Reset Button

In a sense
I have not allowed myself
to let go
of your small hand in mine
as we cross the busy street,

although I know you are ready
and you know you are ready.
Perhaps guilt over sometimes
letting you cry, when I
needed my own life,

but felt stuck in the apparent
confines of caring for two small children
—the life I had,
a life I had chosen.
But now, do you see it too?

It is time to let go
and walk side by side as equals,
each as tall as the other,
each as weak and as strong,
each sometimes needing a hand.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2006

7/1/06

Mother of Adult Children

You want me to be there
when you want me to be there,
and to disappear when
you are no longer—
presumably temporarily—
interested.

How fair is that? And,

that is OK with me…
up to a point.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2006

2/24/08

After You Left

Constantly
I am watching out for you.
Even when I am not watching,
I am watching.

I cannot say why this is true
or when it began,
it feels like forever
my love.

So do me a great favor
and become…not less carefree
nor less careless,
nor even more careful,

for being full of care
is not it exactly.
Be more aware of your choices,
more in tune with your inner wisdom.

For you are wise
dear one.

And if I am selfish
and want you to stay with me
when it is clearly time to go,
forgive…

and go.
Call me when you arrive.
I will be waiting.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2008

To read a sample of Letting Go and New Beginnings and the new lovely review go to https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/39211

Symbolic

When we save things our babies have outgrown to later pass on to our kids for their babies, it means more than just the things themselves. They symbolize the dreams we have for our children, our wish to be part of their lives, and our desire to support them. Here are two poems about things I saved to pass on and what happened to those plans.

As expectant parents in 1984 we wanted everything to be perfect for our baby. This first poem is in my new eBook, Letting Go and New Beginnings: A Mother’s Poetic Journey.

11/20/06

Passing Love Along

I painted this chest of drawers
when I was big with my firstborn.
I chose the handles of yellow, red, green, and blue.
I drilled new holes, putting wood dowels and wood putty
into the old holes, lovingly sanding smooth.

I added a white, coated-wire shelf
and screwed it onto the side to hold
the powder, cream, and baby wipes.
I sewed a green cover for the pad to act as changing table.
And after he was born this is where we changed him.

This dresser moved with us to the new house
and has been in his closet as he grew. Twenty-two
years he is now and gone to an apartment in the city,
no place here or there for this white chest.
We are ready to let it go with a blessing
to a hopeful family crossing the ocean,

welcoming them to the beginning here of their new life.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2006

The second poem was prompted by the news: a law passed that cribs with side rails that went down were unsafe and could no longer be sold. Since cribs are used for such a short time, most cribs are bought second hand or passed down. When I was pregnant with my son, we picked out a really good crib with matching dresser that would be used for both our babies and handed down the generations. After saving it in the basement for 23 years, this week that crib went out with the trash. What else could we do with it, in good conscience, but let it go?

3/6/11

Old Crib

(as best we can)

The crib that we choose with deliberate care
has now been determined and declared
unsafe for all babies—or some—
even though the slats were closer,
even though we entrusted our two new ones
to its nighttime enclosure with the bumper pads
of bright cars or pink buds with lace, matching comforters.
Now it cannot in good conscience be saved
for grandchildren yet unconceived.
It could be kept as a souvenir
of lost sweet baby days, but what would be the point?
Let it go forevermore
bless what use we had of it
what love surrounded those precious lives
just then at their beginning…

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2011

What have you let go this week? And why?

Remodeling

A poem written 9/5/9

Remodeling as a Transformative Device

(Better than Illness)

Every summer for a long time,
or often anyway,
illness has caught me—
serious enough to warrant
immediate concern
life-threatening even.

And all time was then divided
into before the diagnosis
and after it, life wiped
away as I had known it,
what had seemed important
became less than trivial.

Amnesia set in
about how things had been
and I couldn’t get back
to “normal.”
The process of healing
took the time it took

and the lessons came
and some stuck;.
some left until
the next time.
And on and on it went
with help coming at key moments.

I learned how to ask and receive.
I learned how to balance in chaos.
How to laugh at darkness.
How to let myself feel
and even cry in the presence of others.
And I wrote it all down:

the insights, the quest, the stories
that seemed to give meaning
to suffering, to healing.
Was there no other way
to transformation than
ripping off my skin

again and again?
Then, this summer:
remodeling—Let everything be different
than it had been. Let clutter
be cleared, past failures forgiven,
all belongings spread out,
nothing where it had been.

Ask: If I were moving,
would I keep this?
And as dusty carpet went out
and clean wood floors went in,
light came too, gleaming.
Kitchen cabinets refaced in rich cherry,

Santa Cecelia (patron saint of creativity)
and the name of our chosen granite from Brazil.
All that was worn and shabby
made new again.
Moving on without moving away.
Color, space, clean air,

promise, possibility, openness.
We can’t find our way back
to what was…
even it we wanted to.
Old habits are breaking
like how high to reach to answer the phone

or where to locate a pair of scissors or stamp or fork,
nothing is where it was,
all part of the 17 or 39 or whatever number
of changes in the environment to sustain
healing changes in me.

And the rest of the family?
Well, they are in the thick and thin of it too.
If they can be nourished
by all this,
if they can learn to function
without the usual foundation,

if they can be surrounded by and
immersed in energy for where they are going…
all the better.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
Copyright 2009

Gratitude

The radio was on in the background as we were having Sunday breakfast and reading the newspaper. It was a program of classical music from South America, one piece from each country. The conductor came on before each one to introduce the music. Before one of the pieces he said something like: the composer’s wife and child had been in a head-on collision and the composer named this composition for her. I believe he also said that they had survived. It got me thinking about the preciousness of time. And how we don’t choose how much time we have we have with those we love. And this poem popped out. I was thinking of my husband, but it really applies to everyone I encounter.

4/26/09

Inspired by Something
Partly Heard on the Radio

I do not know
how much time
I have with you.

I read the stories
or avoid reading them
of all the sad, tragic

things that happen
and tears run down my face
in sympathy, in empathy

whether I would stop them
or not. I know this dark place.
But yet, I do not

want to know the limits
of the hours, the minutes
I have with you.

What good would that do?
Just to be here
where you are

for as long
as there is…
and be grateful.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2009

My Dad’s Birthday

April 2nd was my father’s birthday. Family story has it that his mother held out when she was in labor with him so he would not be born on April Fool’s Day. I don’t know if it works that way, a baby is born when he or she is ready. In any case he was born on April 2.About 23 years ago, when he was just 60, he died of a heart attack following minor surgery. He was a complex man. In many ways I was a Daddy’s girl. But at other times I was an outcast too. I’ve written a lot about many facets of our complex relationship. Here are four of those poems. “The Legacy” is from the very beginning of my poetic journal. “Upon Serious Consideration” I wrote when I was trying to deal with emotions (particularly fear) of being diagnosed with elevated blood pressure, which my dad had for a long time. The other two poems were triggered by contemplating feet and from yoga meditation, respectively. I never know when some bit of truth is going to come through.

10/14/95

The Legacy

My dad had a way of seeing
that he passed on to me,
a way of looking at small things
like spider webs and squirrels,
a way of looking at large things
like waterfalls and sunsets.

He knew when there would be
an eclipse of the moon
and we would watch.
We’d sit out on August nights,
lying back on our picnic table,
to search the skies for falling stars.

He knew how things worked,
how to take apart and
put back together.
He could fix bikes and cars
and washers and plumbing,
and I got some of this, too.

When I was older
my dad had a way of receiving
just what I had to give,
of not always asking for more
than I offered.

This was true of him
with others too.
What a gift he had this way!
I’ve tried to do this,
but it doesn’t come easy to me.

This is not to say
all was well with my father.
He spent most of my life really,
stuck and not happy and dying.

He’d take medicine or have surgery,
do what the doctors said,
but he wouldn’t or couldn’t examine
or change his ways
to become healthy and whole.

What happened to the strapping boy of sixteen
who biked a hundred miles in one day
to visit his uncle, then rode back home again?
What happened to his sense of adventure
and freedom and spirit?

I don’t know.
Lots of things can happen in a life.
Why are some crushed
and others thrive?

Yet I see how much of me now
comes from this man.
How much he passed on
stays with me still
and has brought me to
this perfect moment.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 1995

6/1/05

Upon Serious Consideration

I am not my father
what he did or did not do
is not my choosing;

how he died,
how he lived,
whether he was happy,

or satisfied
had little to do with me,
his oldest daughter.

What he could tolerate,
what abuse he got and gave,
his temper, his intellect,

his humor, his blood pressure,
blood sugar, cholesterol,
scars, mistakes, history,

none of this is mine.
I have a fresh slate
upon which to write.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2005

6/11/06

Composite Feet

Perhaps the lack of metatarsal arch
from my mother, the shortened toes,
bunion (genetically inclined).

And from my father (gone now twenty years)—
I don’t remember his feet, perhaps I got the high arches,
the high insteps, now falling.

From him I got my love of walking.
In his prime I remember one day—
maybe when the house was up for sale

and the kids needed to be away—
he took us to the woods somewhere near
and we walked until exhausted—

that was the point. And at that point
none of us could best him—not like later.

And I remember when I was older
and did not go on family vacations
to state parks in Michigan,

my father was driving north
and the car overheated and to keep going
he ran the heater—in deep summer—

not knowing the diabetic neuropathy
was so advanced he couldn’t feel
his foot burning. And when they

arrived and set up camp
and he took off his shoes
and took off his socks

the skin of his right foot—
his accelerator foot—
came off too.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2006

9/19/06

From Yoga Meditation

I am playing piano
my father sits on the sofa
in the living room
of our house on Eastwood.
He listens to Moonlight Sonata
and improvising sometimes for hours.
I play and he listens.
I do not know how often this happened
maybe once or maybe regularly.
I loved to play and felt it relax him.
I do not remember him ever
commenting or complimenting,
just listening to his oldest daughter
do what she loved.
And that was…and is…enough.

Do you know how hard it is
to re-write the old stories
to heal from wounds old and deep
to rest, finally?
To remember even harsh things
with compassion and understanding
to forgive and let go?
It is hard sometimes
but can be done
and must be done
to heal and move on.

This story of playing piano
and listening is true.
To remember so vividly
the room, the furniture,
the draped windows along the side
to see him so clearly sitting there
what a gift to have him back
for a bit.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2006