A Mother Remembers . . . Passing through a special place
by Olivia Rossi, RN, MSN
Your Personal Trainer
As a military family, we were always arriving or leaving somewhere, facing more challenges than staying in one place. One challenge I called the thread of continuity. That thread is so important in all our lives but especially so in a child’s—even more so when you move from place to place . . .
Of all the places we lived during our twenty-three years in the Navy, the most special in my heart was the time we spent on a little street in Richmond, Virginia, called West Avenue. It’s where our son was born. Over the years he learned, as we all did, that your home isn’t just four walls—it is all those things inside you that you take with you wherever you go.
When we left West Avenue, I wrote a poem. It was our son’s first home, the place we first knew him. I was sad to leave.
I called it “Passing Through.” It is a special reminder of my own early motherhood. The happiest day in my life was the day I became a mother. And so, I dedicate this poem, written in the spring of 1980 when our son was five months old, to all of you new and not so new mothers.
Happy Mothers’ Day. May your lives be filled with days and years passing through beautiful times and places.
