Often in the past twenty years, I have been surprised by a feeling: as if I’ve woken to find myself in a place not altogether unknown, but surprising all the same: walking down the hallways of the high school, I expect to see Karen and Patrick hanging out by the book room, as they did in 1983. I know, intellectually, I’m 43 and on my way to pick up a child for the orthodontist, but pushing through those glass doors into the high school smell, I feel the sixteen-year-old thrill of walking down the hallway, hoping against schedule and tardy make-up, that he will be there today. And there he is, walking towards me, his basketball calves stretching Allen Iverson-thin into his khaki Dickies. My heart skips a beat, as I watch him saunter toward me. That he calls me “Mom” stuns me into present. To my surprise, the lanky man-child walking toward me with that half-hitch in his step, braces glinting, is not Derek, but my son, Christian.

A post-midnight with sleeping bodies in beds, lights off everywhere, except maybe over the sink, a cup of rooibos tea in hand, curled up on the leather couch, book on the arm, listening to the noises of the night house. I’ve spent so many nights in this position at this same time, that, if I am very still, and all I hear is my breath and the same heart beating inside me since before memory, it is hard to tell whether the breathing coming from the other room is my father or my husband; am I seven or forty-three?

Can I be all three? Because, sitting on the couch in my forty-three-year old body, I can still feel the hot flush of shame that fills a seven-year-old body when she realizes she is wholly out of step with the majority, that what she thought was normal was, in fact, quite startling. I can still remember taking my mother’s hand to cross Main Road in Claremont, spacing my fingers to fit between hers, feeling the warmth of her palm cup against mine. My son Adam holds my hand as we run through the parking lot after the game (not as often as before but sometimes still) and when his little fingers fill the curves at the base of mine, for a moment I cannot quite tell whose hand is whose. I am simultaneously small Tessa, knobbly-kneed in green school uniform, and someone’s mother. The years run through me like it was yesterday, today and tomorrow at the same time.

In my today, I have a husband; four children, one of whom started college last week and needs her tuition paid by the 9th; a mortgage; three cars and a borrowed scooter on which we pay the insurance; a soccer team to coach every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday of the season;; briefs to draft and complaints to prepare; an incontinent bulldog who doesn’t like to do her business in the snow so, from November to March, chooses the family room entryway instead; grasshoppers that have invaded my flowerbeds; a weekly tennis group; dirty laundry piled to the window sill. None of these accoutrements make me feel grown up. I supposed they should but they don’t.

I thought getting older meant I would suddenly be transformed into the competent, unruffled, self-assured adults who surrounded me as children–at least from my vantage point closer to the ground. I am still awaiting that transformation: I never wanted to clean my room as a child; I still don’t. The amount of sheer concentration and energy required for to complete a load of laundry, folded all the way into the drawers, is staggering. I didn’t make my bed as a teenager; I rarely do now. Not much has changed inside me on the domestic front as far as I can feel. The yesterdays of me tag along.

Even situations which come with getting older didn’t cause me to feel grown up: the bile of terror rising in my throat as I realize I can still feel my toes just as they are about to cut through me for another C-section; the sinking loneliness that fills when when I realize at four this morning I almost shook my screaming three-week old; the numb of having no job, and no steady income; the shame of having left a child racked with seizures on the operating table because I couldn’t control my sobbing. I did not feel grown up. I felt scared, alone, numb and ashamed–not feelings I thought belonged to the grown up life.

All I knew in these situations was that I was on the cusp of new and unknown. To add to my discomfort, I believed, for every story, there was a script, a set of easy answers, if I could only find them. I grew up amongst ready-made answers to my unuttered questions about what life I should live, what I should worship, whom I should marry, and not whether to have children but how many. Sometimes those “shoulds” fit like the hand-me-down dresses I used to wear from my older sister Margo. Pretty, but so tight around the chest and arms, I huffed my way through Sunday School to avoid splitting the smocking from armpit to armpit. Past experience with tightfitting, hand-me-downs notwithstanding, I’d pull out my catalog of shoulds and woulds: a new mother should feel consuming joy; a real mother would nurse through mastitis so severe her nipples crack from top to bottom; a supportive wife would have dinner ready and be willing to dip into the 401k; a competent attorney would so obviously know how to select a jury; a real coach would have prepared her striker for the offside trap.

Faced with such daunting standards, my own responses took on a “deer in the headlights then hit by a truck” quality–stunned into silence, then a stagger sideways, blinking rapidly. Always, always, my response contained an aspect of flight. Faced with the gap between what I thought a grown up me should be/feel/do and what I am/feel/have done, I feel to run–away. Me and Bono, we both want to run–to the waiting room, to a book which offers escape, to the mall, to the shopping cart on Zappos–anywhere I can start breathing again, and try wrap my arms around what it means to be where I find myself: not the real mother, not the real coach, not the supportive wife, not the competent attorney in a situation which so obviously calls for one. Then, having got my blinking and breathing under control, the imposter-me, who still remembers the feel of her mother’s hand and wishes for it them, sidles back in to play somebody else’s mother.

I am learning that, sometimes, it requires tremendous courage and nerve to simply show up, to be present in a particular day. To be completely utterly and present in the days in which you realize your business is failing and you will have to declare bankruptcy; in that particular day when it sinks in he is leaving you and your children and you will be divorced; in that day and the days that follow when you realize you cannot live with this man any longer and that you need to make a new life; in the days that you look at your children and their choices and weep for them and continue to love them; in the days after death; in the day where you take your beloved’s face between your hands and ask him about “us”; in the days where there is $11.57 in the drawer and no milk until the end of the week; in the day you lose your job and the months of unemployment that follow. Those days that I never thought would be mine, which I could not have imagined–those are my most important days. How I face them shows me I have finally grown up.

Instead of running and apologizing on my return, I am choosing to stand. I’m letting the ebb of the unknown and uncertain flow over and through me. I’m concentrating on stillness. I’m trusting my solutions are sufficient; that the uncertainty which accompanies life will not overwhelm me; that the difficult conversations and laundry are necessary. I’m seeing that my willingness to show up, in whatever inadequate, diluted form, is the most significant measure of a grown up life. And, in my willingness to stand rooted, to be present, I feel the blossoming of calm.
Title: from Counting Crows, “Perfect Blue Buildings”

Tessa Meyer Santiago: Married for almost 20 years; 4 children; trained as an attorney after teaching college for ten years; native of South Africa, living in the Rockies; plays soccer on the Latin Ladies indoor soccer team.  You can read more on her site, Giraffes Make Me Laugh.

Dear Mrs. Gray,

You don’t know me, but I wanted to write you a letter.

My family and I are from Southern California, but we were visiting Utah last week for Thanksgiving. Last Sunday night we were trying to drive from Salt Lake to Park City, where we were staying with friends. A snow storm had blown in and the highway had several inches of snow by the time we made our way up the hill to Park City. The snow plows had not yet made their way to our stretch of highway and quickly we realized we were in trouble. Our California tires were no match for the snow and of course we didn’t have chains. We were following in the tire tracks of a big semi for a while, and so we were making progress up Parley’s Summit, but then our semi got stuck and we quickly came to a stop. Once stopped we couldn’t get the car moving again. There were cars all around us who were also getting stuck. If you didn’t have four wheel drive or some really good snow tires, you were out of luck. We thought we would have to wait a few hours until the snow plows came through and then have someone tow us into the plowed path. It was getting late, and our kids were tired and ready for bed.

You might wonder why I am telling you this story, but at this point your son Ben came to our rescue. He was driving behind us in a red pick up truck and when my husband got out to see how badly we were stuck, he asked if we needed help. Your son tried to give our bumper a push but we just got stuck again, the tires spinning and spinning. He could have just driven around us and been on his way like the hundreds of other cars, but your son pulled his truck in front of ours and grabbed a strap out of the back and tied our front bumber to the back of his truck. And then he pulled us ever so slowly up to the summit. Once we got to the top, he untied the strap (we were worried about braking on our way downhill and didn’t want to slide into his truck). But then he offered to follow us all the way down the hill to our exit in Park City, to make sure we didn’t get stuck again.

And so I wanted to write and tell you about your son, and the kindness he showed my family. I’m guessing, in typical teenage fashion, that he didn’t tell you what had happened that night. I’m betting he just came home and mentioned the storm in passing on his way to the fridge to grab a snack.

But I wanted to make sure you knew, and to thank you for raising the type of boy who would stop to help a stranger, even when it delayed his drive home by an hour or so on a dark and snowy night. My family and I are so grateful.

Sincerely,
Brooke Reynolds and family
. . .
Brooke is a mother of two, book designer, amateur sew-er, and lover of flip-flops. A former senior art director at Martha Stewart Living and Martha Stewart Kids, she writes at Inchmark, where this post first appeared.

Katrina Kenison is the author of Mitten Strings for God and The Gift of an Ordinary Day. She blogs at Ordinary Day Journal. (Thanks to Gabi for passing along this great clip.)

Our strange existence as modern women of the 21 century brought many of us to the realization that by the respectable age of 30, we rarely had a chance to handle a newborn, to change his diaper, to feed him or watch him nurse. That was me anyway, a total novice (not to say a nervous wreck). Before my baby was born I wouldn’t have wanted to hold a newborn. I was afraid to break them. I regarded every new, seemingly relaxed new mother with great admiration. “How does she do it?” I asked myself (and her, if I gathered enough nerve). They all looked like mother earth to me. Relaxed and natural.

Imagine my surprise when my turn came to play mommy. I knew newborn babies cry. Just not how much. You change them, they cry. You don’t change them, they cry. You dress them, they howl,; you undress them, it’s the end of the world as we know it. And don’t get me started with her first baths. My husband actually used his ear plugs. And these were the easy ones.

The hardest cases were those in which we had no idea why our little princess was clutching her little fists and screaming in rage, for hours at a time. She wasn’t hungry, she wasn’t wet, our home was warm and cozy and she had mommy, daddy and grandma at her disposal. She still cried. A car ride quieted her alright, just until we entered back in the house. A bath? Grandma suggested, and quickly withdrew, seeing our horrified expressions. I rocked her, kissed her, held her, and swore I would never ever touch cabbage again (thinking I caused her gas). Needless to say, I felt like a failure. Like the worst mother in the world. Where were my motherly instincts when I needed them? Wasn’t this supposed to come naturally? I felt cheated. I was supposed to just “know” what to do, right? Wrong.

Babies cry. They cry because it’s their only way of communication. They cry to let out frustrations, to get attention, to feed or to sleep. They are not named “newborns” for no reason. Babies are newcomers to our world and everything we take for granted must seem very alarming to them. Their familiar world was body-temperature warm, dark, and wet. They existed to the relaxing sounds of our hearts and our digestive systems, our well meaning voices travelling to them from far, far away. Bundled in an increasingly tightening uterus, they were lulled to sleep by our constant movement. Is it a wonder that our dry, loud, well lit, open-spaced world frightens them?

The good new is, ladies and gentleman, that it is a passing phase. Older babies do cry to communicate their needs but they also use body language, cooes and smiles. The newborn’s survival instinct to shout at the top of her lungs at the smallest inconvenience will slowly fade away, alongside the remaining shreds of her parents’ nervous system. As you tend to your baby’s every need, she learns to anticipate your care. She understands that she is not alone and that you will be there for her. As she grows accustomed to her new environment, her constant sense of urgency will disappear.

My point? You do not need to be the baby whisperer to care for your child. She learns to be a baby at the same rate you learn to be a parent. Just be there for her, and you both shall make it safely to the joys of tantrums and potty training.

Ayalla is a mother of a baby and a toddler. A retired scholar, new blogger and an aspiring writer, she lives in the far far (far) north of Quebec. Check out her blog here.

My sister set a New Year’s resolution to try to live her life as if she were 20 years older and suddenly had the chance to go back and do it all again. I have been thinking about that. I know so much more now. I would do things differently. Fifteen years ago I was 30. If I could go back and visit myself, we would sit on that old green couch that got the afternoon sun while the kids napped, and this is what I would tell myself:

• Quit worrying about what people will think. They aren’t thinking about you.
• Buying things won’t make you happy. Doing things will. Instead of buying stuff – do stuff.
• Impressive cars and fancy houses don’t make you impressive or fancy. And they won’t make people like you (see #1)
• Invite people over more. Quit worrying about if they like you (they do) or if your house is clean enough (they don’t care – see #1).
• Pray more. Pray about EVERYTHING. Like: Should we buy a car? Should I home school? How can I help my child? What can I do for my husband? Please help me to stop freaking out!
• Back WAY off the sugar. You’ll feel better. And, while you’re at it, enjoy how darling and skinny you are right now. Start appreciating how beautiful you are – you are much too hard on yourself.

Then after I gave all that advice I would tell myself just how great I was. I would point out all the things I was doing right. Then we, my 30 year old self and I, would wake the kids up from their naps and cuddle while we read books, then we would go play in the garden – pushing the kids on the swings and admiring their daring trampoline tricks.

I wouldn’t be able to stay long. I am needed here in my 44-year-old life. I would probably cry when it was time to go because I miss that time when my kids were all mine and hadn’t found the world yet.

I would hug my 30-year-old self and tell her I love her. I really do love her. And then I would tell her one last thing:

You are better than you think you are.

…………………………………….

Robin and her tall charming husband have 4 kids: child #1 is in college, child #2 should be in college (grumble), child #3 applying to college, and child #4 in 6^th grade. It’s time for her to start her Ph.D. but she’d rather open a garden center and go to cooking school. She experiences a ridiculous amount of joy when her kids brag about her cooking. She blogs at http://robinblogz.blogspot.com/.

When I was a girl my mother told me this:

“I’m glad my daughters aren’t beautiful.”

(She had four of them.)

“My daughters are interesting and smart and clever instead.”

We were sitting at a stoplight at Stapley and University.

I don’t remember where we were going.

I had heard this in little bits and pieces all my life, but somehow, maybe my age, maybe the stillness of the car, maybe the car itself as holding cell for an unwitting prisoner—this time especially, the words stung.

And penetrated deep into my soul.

My mother was always pointing out who was beautiful; not just pretty, but really beautiful:  My tall, blonde, confident aunt with high cheek bones and deep brown eyes– oh, yes, movie star beautiful; someone in my peer group at church, who was not especially nice to me–  yes, she was beautiful too;  a smattering of beautiful cousins; the whole population of Czech girls—after the return from a humanitarian trip.  The list went on.

Here’s what I knew about myself:  I had a thin long face and I didn’t look good without bangs.

My mother told me so.

(Incidentally, it was seven years and three children into my marriage before I finally threw the “no bangs” rule out the window.  I actually tried my absolute best to never let my husband see me with my bangs pulled off my forehead.  I laugh now.  What wasted energy.)

My mother is not a wretched woman.

I think in her own way, she meant for that first statement to be a compliment:  “Honey, I am so proud of the brilliant, independent, interesting person you’re becoming.  You are so much more than your beautiful face.”

But somehow, by default of my tender age, I missed that.

And maybe

no one ever told her she was beautiful.

How could I be so hideous (my words, now) and unattractive to the one person in the world who was supposed to love me best?

The explanation: It must be true.

Sometimes, now as an adult, my mother will tell me I look nice.

It’s sad–I think she really might think so; but it’s hard for me to believe it.

My poor husband, he tells me I am beautiful, and tells me all he sees when he looks into my face.  He tells me officially, now he’s “had me” longer than my parents so all those insecurities should be undone.

But scars are scars, and they run deep.

——————————————-

So, in my mothering, maybe I’ve gone overboard in the opposite direction.

I think my children are beautiful, and I tell them every chance I get.

Truly, they are more than likely to hear it at least once a day.

Am I raising delusional, stuck-up children, full of pride and conceit?

(If you knew my children, I think you would say not.)

They have their insecurities and doubts just like everyone else.

Am I raising children who are focused more on looks rather than character, integrity and intelligence?

(If you knew my children, I think you would say not.)

Am I raising children who are disproportionally preoccupied with the way that others see them, rather than how they see themselves?

(If you knew my children, I think you would say not.)

Maybe the key is not comparing their faces to anyone else’s.

It’s not about my favorite color of eyes, or a nose that is just so, or my preference to a particular shape of face, or the wave or texture of their hair.  It’s not about telling them that I think they are more beautiful than their friends.

It’s the smile that melts my heart that is beautiful; the one with the chapped lips and crooked teeth, or the deep dimple right in the middle of their cheek.  I tell them that is beautiful to me.

It’s the twinkle in their eyes as they tell me a funny anecdote; the depth in their eyes as they share a concern; the kindness in their eyes as they help someone and don’t even know I’m watching; the way the light hits their eyes and makes them sparkle like a thousand stars when they tell me about something good that happened to them that day.  I tell them that is beautiful to me.

It’s the way their brow furrows in concentration, or the faraway look of a great ponder, or an amused smile at that really funny part in the book—so absorbed in the reading that they are oblivious to having an audience.  I tell them that is beautiful to me.

It’s the way their eyelashes lay in a shadowy smudge across their cheeks when they close their eyes to pray, or when they’ve fallen asleep.  How that one lock of hair keeps finding its way to a troublesome spot and requires an absent-minded, automatic brush of the hand…

They watch me drink in every last inch of their faces, and they know that I love what I see—because I tell them so.

Sometimes I worry.  Have I told them they are beautiful too much?

Due to circumstances not of our choosing, four years ago, we plucked them up from comfort and familiarity, and set them down in a place that was more than a little prickly and cold, and culturally different from anything they had ever been exposed to.  Welcome to a taste of the refiner’s fire, my babies.

It has been full of challenges, culture shock and loneliness.

But children are incredible.

They survive.

I am so amazed at their strength and courage and resilience.

And if the knowledge that their mama thinks they are beautiful has helped to weather these early thunder storms of life, if the knowledge that their mama thinks they’re beautiful has given them the quiet confidence to get back up when they are pushed down, if the knowledge that their mama thinks they’re beautiful helps them on their journey to discovering who they are and all they can accomplish,

then I’m happy to have given it.

And I’m glad it was something I said.

Jenny lives on the east coast with her husband and five terrific kids. Her children say: “she cooks good food, and takes too many pictures.” She likes to eat food that other people cook (preferably, people in restaurants), take pictures, write, shop, spend time with family and to be on vacation. She can be reached at jenny.mom2five@gmail.com.

* * *

In January, Ellen and I ran into Nordstrom so I could pick up some make-up. While we were there, we decided to check out the sale in the children’s shoe department. I had on my workout clothes and was looking pretty ragged. When we got to the shoe department, there were three moms picking out shoes while their young daughters tried on boots and sneakers. These women were stunning and their daughters were equally beautiful.

As I tried to stay out of the swampland of comparison, I saw a strange blur of jerky movement out of the corner of my eye. It was Ellen. They were playing a pop song in the neighboring children’s department and Ellen was dancing. Or, to be more specific, she was doing the robot.

At the very moment that Ellen looked up and saw me watching her, I saw the magnificent moms and their matching daughters staring right at Ellen. They looked horrified. Ellen froze. Still bent over with her arms in rigid formation, she looked up at me with these eyes that said, “What do I do, Mom?”

I remember thinking, “Break the cycle! Be on her side.”

I grew up with a suffocating fear of not being cool enough and not belonging. I grew up with a gut-wrenching fear of this moment. My default would be to shoot a look at Ellen that said, “Don’t be so uncool.”

I glanced up at the mothers, then I looked at Ellen. I reached down into my courage, as far as I go, and I smiled. “You need to add the scarecrow to your moves.”  I let my wrist and hand dangle from my extended arm, then I pretended to bat my forearm around. Ellen and I stood in the middle of the shoe department and practiced our moves until the song was over.

Back-to-school is always emotional around our house. Today was Ellen’s first day of class and my first day of class. This morning, she walked up to me in the kitchen and looked at me with those same eyes. The eyes that say, “No matter what happens, I believe what you tell me about myself. Can you put your own fears away long enough to make me feel safe? Can you tell me I belong here – no matter what?”

She said, “I’m scared. Are you scared?”  I said yes. Then, I went into my bedroom and got my incredible superhero necklaces. I put one on her and the other on me. I told her, “My friend Andrea says that we are our own superheros. I believe her. Let’s practice that today.”

I was able to snap a picture of Ellen in her superhero necklace, but I had to get in my car to get a picture of my necklace (talking about goofy).

We both did OK today. We’re both tired and emotionally exhausted, but we have just enough energy left to bust-a-move.

~Anonymous, as quoted in The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, by Wendy Mogel

This is the hour of lead

Remembered if outlived

As freezing persons recollect the snow

First the chill, then stupor, then the letting go

It is strange and amazing how we can read something one day and find it nothing more than haunting and beautiful and the next grasp the fullest meaning of each short word. It is remarkable how the death of a child can bring your senses to a sharpness you never experienced before. It is this sharpness that allows us to feel more intensely at these times though it doesn’t always feel like a gift. Often times I wonder what I would say to parents like these.

At one time I wore shoes that fit in a similar fashion. This doesn’t make me any wiser, but I recollect some of the things people did say to me and I wonder now as I did then, “what were they thinking?” I was blessed to have one woman placed in my life that acted as a guiding beacon to me during these times because of some of the advice she gave me–though not all of it came in the form of words. If I had to pass on anything to other parents who were hurting because of the death of their precious child what would it be? It wouldn’t be enough, it would be lacking, and it would be less than perfect. It would be heartfelt and honest though; it would be something like this:

To Parents that Mourn,

Tears and gut wrenching pain, those will last for some time, but they will not last forever. There will be days when you wish they would stick with you until your very last breath, like the first time you smile, truly smile, or the first time you laugh like you used to. Shockingly these days will also come sooner then expected. Don’t be hard on yourself when it happens; instead embrace it and dedicate those moments to that child you have lost. Until those moments come, live for today. Cry when you need to, sleep when you want to. Don’t live for others and don’t despise yourself for still living without your child.

Keep in mind the simple fact that grief is a one-man vessel and you captain the one you are in. It hurts and it’s lonely. Find others like you. Not that these people will know exactly how you feel, but there is a comfort in knowing someone else who has or is traveling a similar journey. It is nice to have company along this long road.

Stay close to God in whichever form he takes. When the cards and dinners stop coming to your doorstep He will be the only one that doesn’t leave you behind. When others start thinking you should “be over this by now” He will be the one that will listen to your heart while you cry unceasingly. When the well-meaning words of others sting, His will cushion and heal. When you cannot hold onto your child He will be the one solid thing you can cling to. Years later when it comes flooding back to you and it feels like you are going through it all over again it will be God who never tires of hearing about this precious child.

Do not let the “what ifs” and the regrets haunt you. These are your worst enemy. You were the best parent you could be to this very special child and will continue to be that amazing parent in the future. Remember that you gave it everything in your power. Those days when it does not feel like you gave enough remember you gave this baby your all, which is always good enough. Don’t sell yourself short. You are a parent even if you have no living children. Just because you can’t clothe, feed, and watch your little one grow does not mean you can’t still do thing for him/her. You will find precious and special ways of being the mom and dad you can still actively be. This role of yours does not end with your child dying, it just changes it. You can make it all you want it to be.

Embrace life, especially embrace the life of your baby. It was important and real. It had impact and meaning. It had purpose.

- Another mourning mother

Submitted by B.B., who chooses to remain somewhat anonymous.
“If someone were to send out a search party for me they’d only have to look in a few places.  With my kids playing, reading, and snuggling, in the kitchen cooking up a storm, at my sewing machine trying to make something new, or at the computer writing.  When I don’t have my kids glued to my hips I can be found running, cycling, and swimming.  I blog about the quirks of my life and the joys of motherhood after the death of my oldest child on my blog Simply B, Simply Me and I can be reached at  simply.b.simply.me@gmail.com.”

Today I was talking with a friend.  She mentioned that when she was growing up she loved finding little notes to her from her stepmother, J–in her lunch box, in a box of cereal, inside her backpack. J worked full time as a professor and this was one way of connecting with her kids when she couldn’t be there.  For my friend, the lasting memory was that moment of glee, in finding something unexpected from someone who so completely loved her and told her so often.

Recently J received a cancer diagnosis, a blow to their family world. My friend has decided (in addition to giving support with rides and visits and food) to sneak into J’s house and leave notes in her cereal box, makeup case, purse. To give her that moment of glee in finding something unexpected from someone who so completely loves her.  Full circle, now.

It reminded me of an article I chanced upon in Esopus magazine (via Ali Edwards) about a dad who wrote daily letters to his two children. According to the Esopus 10 website, “exhibition designer Robert Guest has been getting up at dawn every school day for the past 15 years to write a note to each of his two children, Joanna and Theo. Included in Esopus 10 is a sampling of the thousands of letters written by Guest and collected by his wife, Gloria, from lunchboxes and laundry piles.”   Here’s the text from one of them (above left):

“The world Joanna–you can’t imagine how beautiful it really is.  Think of the different places–tropical islands, snow-capped mountains, deserts of sand, miles and miles of green fields.  It’s awesome! Think of the kinds of weather–bitter cold – blinding sun – stormy wind and rain – cool breezes – warm winds.  It’s awesome! Think of the people in the world –black & brown, yellow and red, and white – old, young and babies of each.  It’s awesome! And just think. You get to be here in the middle of it all. So what do you do? You smile, you say “thanks” and you live!  Love, Dad”

Every once in a while, I come across an idea that makes me wish I could go back and start parenting all over again.  Looking through a couple of these letters, this is one of those ideas (click on the above photo to get a closer look).  What I love about these is that they aren’t just about his love for the children (which of course is important) but it’s also about sharing his thoughts and perspectives about the world and life.

Luckily, it’s not too late to write something, even if it’s not the fantastic, letter-a-day idea.  Maybe starting with notes or drawings on napkins.  Or a yearly letter.  Or a shared notebook to exchange thoughts we might not be able to say face-to-face.  Or a post-it.

Here’s what I believe: Writing it down has power and longevity, more than the earnest lectures on responsibility or the new shiny birthday bike. Those tucked messages to our kids eventually nestle in pockets and fists and musty shoeboxes carried from home to apartment and home again to be pulled out and remembered.  Or at least that’s what I do with mine.