Lovely little cardboard boxes

Emmeline at four months

Tonight I brought up from the basement boxes of Emmeline's little baby clothes.  And her sweet, dear little bassinet.  Her infant swing and stroller.  My heart broke in the bitter-sweet way that mothers' hearts do when they are confronted with their  babies' little things when their babies are no longer babies.

Our dear friends Kate and Mike are 37 weeks pregnant and we couldn't be more thrilled for them.  I am grateful to them for letting us be such a part of their preparations for the arrival of the their baby.  Tonight as we were unfolding and folding the little baby things, I was reminded of a poem by Dr. Jeanne Walker, a mentor of mine.  This is from her collection Coming into History:

Poem To Say To a Child While Folding His Outgrown Clothing

While you were still unborn

our friends brought, one by one

the clothes their children had worn:

blankets, a tie gown.

And because we were unable

to find you anywhere

we pulled you from the pockets,

we stitched a fable

of a baby yet unborn.

When you finally came

we dressed you in those clothes.

All winter they were kind.

Now I fold the clothes away,

a legacy refined.

Someone else's child

may briefly take his turn.

For parents, now, who wait,

imagining new faces,

I will enumerate

the children whose graces

became your warmest jacket:

Elizabeth and Melissa,

Patrick, Andrew, Kate

wore these clothes once.

Teddy, Bess, and Ethan.

And may their loveliness

wherever these clothes are worn

shield against loss

and pass to those unborn.