![\"EBikingRiver\"](\"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/EBikingRiver.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\nMay they never be lonely at parties
\nOr wait for mail from people they haven\u2019t written
\nOr still in middle age ask God for favors
\nOr forbid their children things they were never forbidden.<\/p>\n
May hatred be like a habit they never developed
\nAnd can\u2019t see the point of, like gambling or heavy drinking.
\nIf they forget themselves, may it be in music
\nOr the kind of prayer that makes a garden of thinking.<\/p>\n
May they enter the coming century
\nLike swans under a bridge into enchantment
\nAnd take with them enough of this century
\nTo assure their grandchildren it really happened.<\/p>\n
May they find a place to love, without nostalgia
\nFor some place else that they can never go back to.
\nAnd may they find themselves, as we have found them,
\nComplete at each stage of their lives, each part they add to.<\/p>\n
May they be themselves, long after we\u2019ve stopped watching. \u2014Mark Jarman<\/em><\/p>\n How did our baby girl come to be FIFTEEN? Yet here she stands, strong, quick-witted, lovely, and nearly my height; by spring she\u2019ll be taller than I. For her birthday today I post a sketch made on a summertime bike ride. I see it now symbolically, as her gazing into her future: shining, expansive, fullRead more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[55,47,48,17,19,3],"class_list":["post-6933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sketchbook","tag-birthday","tag-dc","tag-ecs","tag-penink","tag-poem","tag-watercolor"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6937,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6933\/revisions\/6937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMay they return from every kind of suffering
\n(Except the last, which doesn\u2019t bear repeating)
\nAnd be themselves again, both blessed and blessing.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>Eileen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"