“Looking Back”
(a poem from a grandparent’s heart)
I blinked—
and the house got quiet.
The toys were gone,
the voices faded,
and the walls
held memories
like photographs
I never took.
I still remember the days
when little feet ran wild
through my kitchen,
leaving behind
crumbs and laughter
and a mess I miss
more than I ever thought I would.
I wasn’t always this grey,
this slow,
this tender.
I used to carry babies on my hip
and groceries in the other hand—
I used to be needed
in a thousand little ways.
And oh, how I used to rush.
Rush the bath times,
rush the bedtimes,
rush through stories
that deserved to be savoured.
But I was tired.
And young.
And thought I had forever.
Now I sit on the porch
and watch the breeze
like it’s telling me something sacred.
I hum lullabies
to no one in particular,
and I pray
that the love I gave
was enough to be remembered.
Because when the days are long
and the phone doesn’t ring,
I go back in my mind—
to the tiny hands,
the sticky kisses,
the chaos I once begged for a break from.
Funny,
how the very thing
that wore me out
became
the very thing
I miss the most.
So if you’re in the thick of it—
weary, messy, stretched thin—
please look up.
Soak it in.
Hold it close.
Because someday,
you’ll blink too.
And you’ll wish
you could live
just one of those wild days
all over again.

😢

Credit: unknown