Suddenly it Falls Away

She sat on her grandfather's knee an hour after being born, and she looked at the people across
the room, the new mother and father, and she had so many things to tell them, so much
information and guidance...she wanted to tell her mother that she had heard
her lonely cries at night
and tell her father that she understood why he stayed out so long in the bars;
she wanted to tell them that they shouldn’t be so frightened,
they should trust, believe and love;
that where she had just come from, the whole concept was love;
that she had come to them specifically to teach them love;
but she blinked to clear her eyes
and suddenly she was three.

When Karen Gibbons was eight years old, she used her allowance to buy a big notebook to begin her novel. She recently found it in her inherited childhood home last February, a bit mildewy but still readable, the first line being "She had just come back from Paris." She smiles maternally now at the child she was. In her twenties and longer, Karen stopped the dreaming in order to live; life taught her well and taught her hard. She is here now, having aged her thoughts in many more notebooks, with hopes that maybe someone will read and think, "Hey, I've been there."