This morning I was going through a gallery of travel photos on the net that someone
took during a trip to Disney World and the Magic Kindom with their
small children. I was remembering how much fun we had taking the
girls to Disney when they were little. For us in those days it
really did seem like the happiest place on earth. Then at lunch I
heard a reading of this Edna St. Vincent Millay poem that talks about a
different kingdom. This gives a sense of what I keep trying to
describe when I talk about what the girls have lost. Childhood.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies
Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.
Nobody that matters, that is. Distant relatives of course
Die, whom one never has seen or has seen for an hour,
And they gave one candy in a pink-and-green stripéd bag, or a jack-knife,
And went away, and cannot really be said to have lived at all.
And cats die. They lie on the floor and lash their tails,
And their reticent fur is suddenly all in motion
With fleas that one never knew were there,
Polished and brown, knowing all there is to know,
Trekking off into the living world.
You fetch a shoe-box, but it’s much too small, because she won’t curl up now:
So you find a bigger box, and bury her in the yard, and weep.
But you do not wake up a month from then, two months
A year from then, two years, in the middle of the night
And weep, with your knuckles in your mouth, and say Oh, God! Oh, God!
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies that matters,
–mothers and fathers don’t die.