I Remember

My mother keeps this photo of me at age 12 in her Bible. We were living at 37 Paddington Terrace in Jamaica when it was taken. That's the airy front verandah I remember. Seeing this today, I'm reminded of a poem my mother and I once memorized, simply because she loved it so. I can still hear our voices saying the words in unison, eyes locked and smiling.

I remember, I remember
The house where I was born
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn.
It never came a wink too soon
Nor spent too long a day
But now I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.

Now that I am grown, I realize the poem is a very sad one. The poet, Thomas Hood, goes on to evoke the end of life, a fever on the brow, mourning all that is past and will never be again, and the loss of the easy grace of an unfettered childhood. At 12, I grasped none of that. My whole experience of the poem was the rhythm of my voice timed to my mother's, and the knowledge that the moments we shared learning and reciting the verses were meaningful to her, and thus to me. Later, I learned this poem had been her mother's favorite. I think she was missing her mother on the day that she taught the verses to me. As I miss mine today.