Of Cups Over-flowing and Heart-strings

 (I wept(happily, sadly) through this whole scene!
My girls and I are now in the middle of watching season 3 on DVDs we borrowed from a friend)

Mom, will you be happy or sad when we get married? my son asked me this morning while the rest of the house was still asleep and he was getting ready for school…I will be...pause, both equally, I said, because…

There are two cups

In a mother’s heart

One for gladness

And one for grief

Even now they brim equally

Spilling and filling

In the same breath

And my dear boy,

A mother’s joy

Is such a strange, mysterious thing

We teach you to move forward

But there seems to be a string

That tugs within her heart of hearts

As the future becomes past

Because Time is a swift-winged creature

Always flying way too fast

And every now and then I miss

The way you once looked up to me

Where now you lean to place a kiss

Upon my tender reverie

Yet, I am learning to be glad

While cradling love’s mysterious pain

Of being so profoundly sad

At what will never pass again...

© Janet Martin

...because when one becomes a groom or bride

she must sever, at least in part

the strings entwined deep inside

the core of a mother's heart.