The Natural Order of Things

As the days count down to when my amazing daughter and I will no longer share space, I find I am weepy, giddy, manic, depressed - the entire gamete from sorrow to joy rips through me in an instant.

Sorrow - that I will no longer hear her laughter across the way as we are engaged in separate activities within the house we share.
Joy - that I've had this incredible opportunity to be with her.

And as I sit in my room tonight, I am reading a comic which bonds us - we gave each other the trilogy one Christmas during her college career - and she left me post its on the cartoons that mattered the most to her.  Of course I am speaking of Calvin & Hobbs; she even created a class at Berkeley devoted to the philosophy of Calvin & Hobbs.  I think she did it just to play Calvin Ball, but that's simply conjecture... 

In Book Two, December 10, 1988, Calvin imagines he is a dragon - I stopped reading the cartoon, closed my eyes, and sang 'Puff'.


If you don't know 'Puff the Magic Dragon', stop now and look up the lyrics.  No, it's not about drugs.  Sheesh...


When Jordan was small, I'd sing her to sleep.  Even then she didn't mind that I was tone deaf and sang off key - oh, and changed keys at will mid-song!  Now, she shakes her head when she hears me sing and says, with great affection in her voice, 'Oh, Mom, you're so cute,' but she sings with me anyway.  Except for Puff.  Puff always made her cry.  And tonight, when I sang it to myself, I felt I was Puff...'without his lifelong friend, Puff could not be brave, so Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave.'


This time out of time that I've had with my daughter has allowed me an understanding and an acceptance of Jordan in ways that far transcend the mother-daughter relationship.  I will always and forever be grateful.


And the child is doing what she aught -


Learning, absorbing, surpassing ...


to form the next generation.




Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea, and frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called HannaLee; Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea, and frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called HannaLee...