In life, it’s easy for us to think we have more time.
Think about being sixteen, seventeen or eighteen, and you think: “That can’t happen to me.”
It doesn’t matter what that is.
I close the door to Corrie’s room every night because we used to keep it open, but I open it during the day. I go in every morning. I hear her say, “Mommy kiss. Mommy hug.” If I kissed her, she called me out for not hugging her. I was tired or in a hurry to do something else sometimes.
I made a mistake. I thought I had more time.
I thought we had a lifetime.
I was wrong.
Because Corrie has taken a path I cannot follow. Heaven owns a treasure that was never truly mine, and one none can replicate.
I envy every mother when they show pictures of their two children or of a daughter.
I know I should not. But my daughter has gone before me.
Below I share an excerpt of two verses from a longer poem I’ve written about Corrie called Treasure’s Chest. The title treasure’s chest comes from this part of the poem:
I stood in the rain after I’d pumped
my treasure’s chest
who knows the
number of times.
Treasure’s Chest takes the myth of El Dorado, and I combine it with what I believe is the true treasure and majestic city. My mother asked me to try and get it published, so that is why I share only a portion.
Excerpt from Treasure’s Chest by Rebecca T. Dickinson
I know the truth about El Dorado.
There isn’t a guide, road, bridge or
cave where you may go. It is a city
with a treasure worth more than
plain gold. A girl who comes to
me in dreams, was once real, but
never more seen. She’d lived here,
and now dwells there in a city more
majestic than any ever spread as
myth or legend. The treasure,
once mine, has gone from me to
this city I believe is evergreen.
Instead of a sweat-scape search
for gold and lost cities with snakes
and steep steps, the treasure, Cora,
came to me. Her hair fell across
her back and over her shoulders
in loose curls with shades of
gold and red as she climbed a
porch instead of using stairs.
She used the side as a balance
beam even when I, her mother,
reached for her. She laughed
and went the other way.
“Mommy, watch me,” she said.
“Mommy, you didn’t watch.”
She stopped. Put her hands on
her hips, and waited for my eyes
to watch her on her balance beam.
Photos are from our trip to the beach with just Corrie in April 2019.
Corrie's Season 