On this rainy New Year’s Day, let’s dust off this poem of Mom’s from the start of another year, long ago.

The year 1973 was one of great change for our family. Oldest brother Harry graduated high school and headed to college. Dad was offered a job transfer to Indianapolis. We packed up the house and moved nearly a thousand miles away. We buried a beloved cat.

But that was all months later. On January 1, 1973, Mom looked lovingly at her husband and put her thoughts to paper a few days later:

Love Letter for the New Year

Gently then, the strength of you
reads to our youngest son a mouse adventure,
speaks to the oldest of a father’s fears,
kisses my mouth beside a summer garden,
talks at a New Year table of the good things done as well as those to come,
harnesses anger,
opens our earth anew for seeds of courage and of love.
~ Joan Vayo 3 January 1973

Here’s a photo Dad took of Mom and Harry on graduation day. Mom’s dress is just perfect for 1973, with those bell sleeves and groovy flower design.

I’m guessing the children’s book Mom mentions in her poem is Stuart Little. How sweet that our grandson Cameron is the same age now as my brother Bill was in 1973. Cam and I are reading a few chapters of Stuart Little together each time he visits.

I couldn’t find a photo of Dad reading to Bill, but here he is as a grandfather, reading to Becky and Tom, circa 1988.

Here’s wishing you and yours a happy and healthy new year. Read a book to a child, dig in a garden, kiss your beloved.

And maybe even write a poem.

“Love Letter for the New Year” © 1973 Joan Cassidy Vayo. All rights reserved.

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