Who writes a love poem from her hospital bed?

My mom, apparently.

The year was 1982, the month was January. The hospital was Yale – New Haven. (“This should fix her plumbing problems once and for all,” Dad explained with his usual delicate word choice.)

The love poem was a Valentine to her youngest child.

Valentine for Bill

Our last son is the Red Fox.
My pen becomes the glass blower’s
pipe as I sing of him with
incandescent love beyond my
understanding. Somewhere in the
chapters of my heart I have
come upon him again, a princeling,
the rose-and-jeweled egg
unearthed on Easter morning.

~ Joan Vayo 24 January 1982

So many of Mom’s poems were carefully typed over the years, but this one is handwritten.

Twenty years later, Mom and Dad celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary here in Indiana, with all their children and grandchildren together. This year’s jubilee, their 70th, will be in heaven.

“Valentine for Bill” © 1982 Joan Vayo. All rights reserved.

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