"Majority" by Dana Gioia

Now you'd be three,
I said to myself,
seeing a child born
the same summer as you.

Now you'd be six,
or seven, or ten.
I watched you grow
in foreign bodies.

Leaping into a pool, all laughter,
or frowning over a keyboard,
but mostly just standing,
taller each time.

How splendid your most
mundane action seemed
in these joyful proxies.
I often held back tears.

Now you are twenty-one.
Finally, it makes sense
that you have moved away
into your own afterlife.


I read this poem today and immediately though of Baby J and about how much I miss him and will continue to miss him as he grows up into a little boy and a teenager and a man. He probably won't remember me; he might not remember me now, but I'll always remember the six months when I was his nanny and he was mine.