Sunshine on My Mind
17 May 2012
For Mother’s Day Professor Daughter sent this bit of bright sunshine for my newly red office.
She assured me it will do fine in my office window. Sunshine right beside me.
Does she know this is a metaphor? Does she remember?
When she was born, we were ecstatic. The day was cloudy and rainy, good luck to keep her safe from jealous gods. She was the sunburst. To say we were/are crazy about our only progeny is pretty much an understatement. Each morning began, even though I truly cannot sing, with me singing to the little miracle in the crib, Sunshine on My Shoulders.
That song replayed in my mind all day, every day. It was part of the joy, the light she brought us. Like when she learned to toddle a bit early because she was in a hurry to get to and sit on the cat, RT an infinitely sweet and very surprised tuxedo. Or when she recreated her ancestry by painting every inch of her diaper-clad body with the rest of my blue eye shadow. Before she mastered spoken language, our bit of sunshine learned humor. She stood droopy-diapered in front of the TV, one hand on the soap opera star, laughing hysterically. (That day I went cold turkey on soap operas and took up Scooby Doo for a much improved intellectual challenge.) Her first word was “Bird”. In honor of “Bird” her grandparents sent her the gorgeous Cockatoo woodblock I had coveted all my life. “Bird” hung in our house throughout her childhood.
Our days were bright with scattered teen-aged thunderstorms. She raced through school, all sunshine curls and insatiable curiosity, finishing a year young but raring to go on to college.
She shone at Vanderbilt, although her obsessive mother spent those first two weeks crying on Professor Daughter’s bed. Parents Weekend couldn’t come soon enough for us. We made it through both her Vanderbilt and Yale graduations, only letting our rain fall when we drove home without her.
These days the Cockatoo “Bird” picture hangs in the home of Professor Daughter and her own Junior Prince Consort. They live a long day’s drive away, but she sent us Sunshine. Kath who will always have Sunshine on her mind.
