makanalani

When I look at you, my little one,
I shouldn’t see my eyes or my smile
in your sweet little face,
but I do,
as you smile back at me
with expressions I recognize
as my own.

I watch you play and expect to find
some unfamiliar way in you,
some distinguishing characteristic which might betray
what my heart has come to believe,
that you are mine.
Instead I see myself,
a living depiction of the little girl I once was,
a girly girl, as you mother your dolls,
play in my make-up,
and make believe you’re a princess
in your fluffy, sparkly, night gown.

When you talk you talk like me.
When you laugh you laugh like me
and when you’re angry you’re stubborn, like me.
Our skin, our eyes and our hair are different colors,
but our spirits are the same.

You are my daughter,
predestined for me, as a gift from Heaven,
from the beginning of time.
Your name is no coincidence,
but was given to you, by God,
before you came to me,
to plainly declare His providence over your life.
You did not come from my womb,
but from His heart and mine
and there you’ll remain, always, my little one.