A Letter to My Daughter

Dearest,

You ask me so often WHY I love you and I feel so helpless in trying to express how much you mean to me and to my life. I know you will never understand fully unless you have a child of your own, but it is Kenyon times 1000. I wish I could wave a magic wand and it would let you feel even for a moment the depth of my love for you so you would no longer need to ask, you would just know.

We have watched you grow from the earliest days there are photos and journals that recorded the minutia. Daddy secretly called the hospital to get the test results and knew you were on the way before even I did, and he got to tell me and we both cried. That was one of the first happiest days of my life. Eight months later was another, you came into the world backwards, and blue and were whisked away before I even got a look. We held our breaths until we heard this little cry and thought then we couldn’t possibly love you more than at that moment, but we do because it keeps growing.

Each day provides opportunity for parental bonds to get stronger, to get to know this “person becoming” who now shares your life. And what a person you have become. More than I could have imagined, as a parent you would like to take credit for all the wonderful, but mostly it’s just you. We are so proud of the young woman you have grown into. Your work at school, your jobs, your college safari, all demonstrate a responsible, mature forward thinking person that leaves her peers in the dust. But more important than the endless creativity, artistic flair, and word mastery is the heart that beats at the center of all that passion and promise. It is that heart filled with genuine concern and caring that shines through even when it’s immediate surroundings seem bleak and dark, we are connected by that heart.

You have yours and I gave you mine 18 years ago, that is how I know exactly how beautiful you truly are. Allowing one’s heart to romp about unprotected isn’t always easy, there are the bumps and bruises of childhood and the rending of adolescence, but on the whole you have taken great care of mine and I feel safe knowing a bit of me is always with you. In exchange for the hazards I get a peek at what makes up the core of you, there is a light there that warms me, consoles me, fills me with hope for you. You make me a better person, by all that you are.

As we face the future together, a great abyss at this moment, know that you are more than I could ever have hoped for in a daughter, I am honored to be your mom. Know too that doubt and faith go hand in hand, during those darkest times, I am there with you and Christ is with me, if you don’t see that, it’s ok, you don’t have to, I have faith enough for both of us.

I Love You, forever and always no matter what,

Mom