The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.


Everything Mom
How did you find the energy, Mom
To do all the things you did,
To be teacher, nurse and counselor
To me, when I was a kid.


How did you do it all, Mom,
Be a chauffeur, cook and friend,
Yet find time to be a playmate,
I just can’t comprehend.


I see now it was love, Mom
That made you come whenever I'd call,
Your inexhaustible love, Mom
And I thank you for it all.



A little girl needs Daddy
For many, many things:
Like holding her high off the ground
Where the sunlight sings!
Like being the deep music
That tells her all is right
When she awakens frantic with
The terrors of the night.

Like being the great mountain
That rises in her heart
And shows her how she might get home
When all else falls apart.

Like giving her the love
That is her sea and air,
So diving deep or soaring high
She'll always find him there.




Brothers,
The ones you go to for help,
For comfort,
For advice,
When you just had a fight with Mom and Dad,
Another girl,
Or your boyfriend.

Brothers,
The ones you go to, to tell them that
You're pregnant,
Getting married,
Or just need a shoulder to cry on.
The ones you look up to,
Share jokes,
And talk to about everything.

Brothers,
They're there for the good times,
Bad,
And everything in between.




Here sits my puppy
all tattered and torn
everybody loves him
even though he's so worn.
His body is floppy,
his hair is a mess,
but I love him dearly
and he loves me the best!