Letters to my children

I’ve had one or two major relationships built on the foundation of the written word.

When I put words on paper, I’m forced to think about what I want to say. I am faced with the fact that, in most cases, whatever it is I want to communicate will be out there, forever. And, if it’s out there, that means it can be re-read.

I’ve got a macramé trunk in the attic that my mother nicknamed my dead boyfriend box. It is filled to the brim with every meaningful note I’ve received over the course of every relationship I’ve ever had.

Not just boyfriend notes. (Though they are in there, too.)

Friends.

Family.

Colleagues.

Not every letter, either. Only the musings that are particularly well-written or significant make the cut.

My first love letter is in there. 8^th grade. From a boy who asked me to a dance and then, later, gave me my first kiss. 12^th grade, an email from the guy who first broke my heart. College, a computer print out from my father telling me how much he loves me. A beautiful embossed postcard from my mother thanking me for organizing her surprise party.

Scrap paper I love you’s from my son.

A scribble from my daughter.

They are all living in the memory box in the attic.

I have given Zachary and Zoe their own memory boxes that sit on the top shelves of their closets. Until they get older, I am assuming responsibility for filling their containers with their firsts and lasts. I’ve wrapped up the outfits they wore when I brought them home from the hospital. I tucked away their first Converse sneakers. There are Ziploc bags containing locks of hair. Wrinkled finger paint pictures. Zoe’s 1^st birthday dress. Zachary’s last onesie.

I close my eyes and picture my children as teenagers, as adults, as new parents, opening their boxes and discovering the treasures I have hidden away inside. There aren’t any photographs, though. Over the years I have accumulated thousands of pictures of my family. I have promised myself countless times that I will organize these images in dated albums.

I’ve yet to get to it.

What I have done is written letters. I’ve written letters describing to my children how I feel when they reach certain milestones. When Zachary graduated from nursery school in his blue seersucker pants. When Zoe flew, by herself, on the trapeze.

I sit, often late at night, on the evening of the day these important events have taken place, and I write them down. On paper. With a pen.

The old fashioned way.

I tell my babies how proud they have made their mommy. How I can’t believe how my heart could dance itself right out of my chest and beat on the floor with pride and love. How they are everything. Everything. And how they teach me to breathe.

They show this mommy how to laugh.

To loosen up.

To calm down.

I describe to my children what they were wearing.

How they were feeling.

Who they were with.

But, most importantly, I tell my children that I love them and I make sure to be very clear, at that exact moment in time, to tell them why.

Because even though the love that I have for my children will never go away, the reasons for that love evolve. I know that I love my 6-year-old-Zachary differently than I love my 3-year-old-Zoe. And, I am sure I will love the 17 year old version of my son for different reasons than I love him now. Same is true, of course, for my daughter.

And if, God forbid, I am ever driving anywhere and a truck swerves into my lane; if I am walking and I take a wrong step; if something should ever take me away from my children before I am old and gray and wrinkled:

I want them to have my words frozen in time.

I want to be so clear with my writing that the letters I pen late at night have the power to wrap their arms around the shoulders of my babies, and rock them to sleep.

If you are careful with what you write-and if you give that writing to someone else-you give them eternity.

It is why, when you summarize a novel, you must always summarize in the present tense.

Because, if you open that book, Charlotte is still speaking with Wilbur.

George is still mourning Lennie.

The quiet old lady will always be whispering, “hush”.