Best Birthday Ever

Actually it was last week, but I have to share what my amazingly talented children gave me for my 51st birthday. Genny created a painting, in green which reflects my nature nuttiness, and Anna wrote a poem that nearly moved me to tears.*

We ate out at Fish Market (I enjoyed an oyster poorboy which was definitely NOT on my diet!) and then went by Publix for a cake - I had two, count 'em, two slices of this chocolate and whipped cream concoction. Phil's best gift was to not tease me about how far I seemed to backslide.

I have hung the painting and the poem on the wall in my home office, where I can see it and be inspired.

subtract nothing, multiply the marble

If I could count the things
you've done for me,
the number would stretch beyond
the atmosphere-
explaining to me the
secrets of Pi,
and why I always get
a B in math.

But no numerical equation
could fit all the wonders
of you, mother.
X equals carrying me out
of the bathroom when I
had finished a shower.
Y is rock-a-bye baby.
Z is long conversations,
telling me it'll be alright.
There aren't enough letters,
not even numbers
to figure us out.

But I am no mathematician.
Thoroughly an artist, always.

So I think of myself carved from
marble, beginning as a clean cube
at birth, slowly being chipped
and molded. I'll never forget who it
was that made my hand so smooth,
that sanded down my fingertips and
engraved in the creases.

I'm a statue not yet finished,
parts of me so mysterious,
who knows how perfect they could be.

But I'll never forget my sculptor,
and never be finished until the final touch,
that final scratch or scar,
is etched on by you.