For Lisa

Lisa- my darling dancing daughter,
glinting smile, mischief in your glance,
first-born child, full of beauty,
lighting up our lives
with love and dance.

Little magpie
chattering the livelong day,
sharing all your world with everyone-
flitting here and there
from room to room,
never still for long
and seldom quiet.

Six years old and suddenly
so grown-up,
reading words that
yesterday were strange;
knowing all the answers
to your questions
and yet so innocent
and (somehow) touching.

Stay, my little Lisa,
stay a while,
don't grow up so fast-
don't go away.
(and on she sleeps, her
teddy tucked beneath her chin,
eyes and mouth closed sweetly
vulnerable.)
I love you.


-©Betty Winslow

I wrote this when Lisa was six; we used it in the program at her funeral and on the handout at the Maumee Valley Country Day School memorial service.