I learned this morning that two of my friends lost children last night. One sweet little girl who had been fighting a hard battle for a while now, is finally at peace. And another little girl, taken by surprise in a horrible and unfortunate situation. My heart feels tight in my chest, and my arms keep searching for you every time you crawl away. My love keeps reaching out to places barren out of knowledge of need. But it cannot touch the dark vacuum of absence losing a child must cause. Just the smell of your hair pulls this grasping on the verge of desperation that I have to anchor down with routine. The dishes, the floors.
How brave these mother's are. To face the world. The possibility of life after death, both spiritual and on this earth that goes on without their little girls. How brave to accept love in light of questions about the loveless act of losing.
How brave any mother is, to love someone so much at all. You, daughters, causing so much abandon in cautious hearts.
As a mother we learn to be careful of everything. Of every sharp corner, of every mean word, of every reach you make. What a dichotomy to question everything but my love for you out of love for you.
Today, you learned how to point to the nose on your teddy bear. Because of the night, I'm not sure there will ever be a lesson you learn, that I will cheer for with more gratitude.
Sweetness
Just when it has seemed I couldn't bear one more friend waking with a tumor, one more maniac
with a perfect reason, often a sweetness has come and changed nothing in the world
except the way I stumbled through it, for a while lost in the ignorance of loving
someone or something, the world shrunk to mouth-size, hand-size, and never seeming small.
I acknowledge there is no sweetness that doesn't leave a stain, no sweetness that's ever sufficiently sweet...
Tonight a friend called to say his lover was killed in a car he was driving. His voice was low
and guttural, he repeated what he needed to repeat, and I repeated the one or two words we have for such grief
until we were speaking only in tones. Often a sweetness comes as if on loan, stays just long enough
to make sense of what it means to be alive, then returns to its dark source. As for me, I don't care
where it's been, or what bitter road it's traveled to come so far, to taste so good.
Sweet Baby Autumn, You are sleeping right now. This morning we woke up and you had your breakfast; peaches and raspberry oatmeal. We've made it to New Jersey, and are finally settling into a routine. You love the new place. You are becoming more and more mobile, crawling and standing and side stepping! You will be walking soon. You have a walker that lets you move about exploring. Our floors are hardwood so there is no place you cannot see when you want to. I love to watch you learn to trust your independence. To touch, and see, and hear all of the new things around you. Sometimes, I cook for you. I make soft foods that you can feed yourself. I spread out scrambled eggs, or kidney beans, or pasta on your tray and you mostly love to smash it with your hands and smear it in your hair. But you laugh, and you love to eat. Except for the eggs. You don't like the eggs at all. It's the only food you've ever turned away from, wrinkling your nose and pulling what made it into your mouth out with your hands. You love the beans. And you love cheese. You also love the splat of spaghetti on the floor. You've learned how to clap, how to wave goodbye, and how to sign that you want something to eat. But most exciting, is that you are learning to talk! Your first word was my name. More like, "Mamamama..." But you eventually dropped the extra mamama's and call me something that sounds like "my mama." Which I love. You can call for your Daddy. And you say "Babi" for baby. You also say "uh-oh" for everything. You fall down, you say uh-oh. You drop your bottle, you say uh-oh. You pick up a toy, you say uh-oh. You point to a dog, you say uh-oh. You get the idea. This is letter is not going to be full of wisdom, or lessons I hope you learn. It's just a brief I love you. And am happy to share my life with you. When you wake up, we will go to the park and you can swing on the swings. Love, Your Mamama.
I like to write. I like to write poetry, and stories about when I was little. I like to write presentations for work. I even like to write boring business emails I know most people will just skim through and delete. I like to write letters, like these to you.
But I don't write like I used to. Because life is busy. And I have bills
to pay, and tasks to finish. I love your dad, keep our house, try my
best to raise you to be strong, and smart, and kind. My days are full of
verbs. All the practical littles that
make up the hours.
I don't write like I used to.
Because I've grown up. And feelings, and sense of self fall into the
cracks left behind by the hardening of youth. Because we do that, don't
we? Spend our younger years finding a place, a shape, a person we
think we are and mold ourselves meticulously into it. Waiting to be
solid and complete. A finished work.
But the unseen
hazard is that most of those molds turn out to be complicated systems
set up by millions of those who grew up before us. Tunnels and ladders
of default that you may not want to navigate but will be held
accountable to anyhow.
You don't realize when you have
it, but there is a give that comes when the whole world is ahead of you,
when you haven't learned yet the value of sturdiness and the ease of
know how. A pliability that lets who you are move about in lumps and
grooves. Leaving plenty of room to let your feelings sit tall over
logic; writing poetry, singing songs, painting on scraps of wood found
behind old buildings. Loving aimlessly everything, raging against
without the fear of being wrong, or worse, misunderstood.
Growing up, I'd
always been indifferent, leaning towards partial, to the systems we
live in. Because they served me well, and I was a smooth stone under rushing
water. I liked games with clear guidelines when I was little. The kind
where everyone is given the same set of rules and then asked to
perform.
When I was in my first creative writing class,
in the sixth grade, I remember my teacher giving us a short story
assignment. She told us about Ernest Hemingway and his six word story,
"For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn."
And she praised his cleverness. She
explained that words were tools, and with them we could express
anything we wanted. She talked about how he was gifted because he was
able to work within such limited confines. I wanted to be that gifted, I
wanted to be able to express myself so well. I was shy, but cerebral,
and dreamy in a 12 year old sort of way. The possibility of an outlet
for the way I thought was appealing. I remember the assignment opening a
world to me. As I got older, I learned about the archetype for
classical poetry. About cadence and measure. I liked it when someone
was able to express something delicate inside the rigid discipline of
structure. Sonnets, haiku, everything in the daDUMdaDUM of iambic
pentameter.
I became obsessed with finding the exact right word for everything.
The girl was "lovely."
His tone was "candid."
The directions "precise."
The colors "vivid."
When I got older, there were things
in my life that happened, and hurt. There were things that left me
confused, frustrated, and hopeful in turns.There were things that filled
me up with so much love I thought I would drown in it. Your dad wrote
me a letter when I was eighteen, and in that letter he told me I was a "woman becoming." And
that felt right. I was becoming. And unbecoming. I was always running to and
fleeing from myself like the tides. Like a child on the beach. Life was
complicated, and beautiful in a way. I realized how small I had been and how
much there was to experience.
I felt overwhelmed a lot
of the time. I was at bursting capacity underneath, and still a smooth
small stone outside. I fell in love for the first time.
I found new ideas that made me talk late into the night with friends
who were also discovering themselves alongside me. I lost family
relationships I'd planned to harvest love from for years. I lost trust
in religious authority I'd hoped to follow through the dark. I pleased a
lot of people. Everyone remarked how calm, and insightful, and strong I
was for my age. But mostly, I felt helpless.
And no matter how much bad poetry I wrote, I could not find the exact
right words to weigh down my heart and keep me from flying away. There
were no words to do justice by this big and beautiful world. There was a
complicated and twisting landscape of need to navigate, and I felt ill
equipped.
Then, my freshman year in college, an English professor drew a man on
the board and explained nihilism to me (we'll talk about that when your much older). In a way that didn't ask me to
believe him, only to know that the concept existed (which is a funny way
of saying it if you think about it). I liked the idea of a clean slate,
and wiping away of all the nominal nonsense I'd collected and assigned.
Like knocking the blocks over. Later in the semester, he slipped an
extra sheet of paper underneath a test he was returning to me in class.
On it was a poem by e.e.cummings.
I went out and bought a collection of his poetry.
e.e.cummings didn't follow the rules of basic grammar, let alone iambic
pentameter. Nouns were verbs were adjectives were adverbs, and they were
all personified. He would throw a parenthesis in the middle of a word
and add an extra set on the end in a way that made me panicky. I had to learn to read his poems with
new eyes. It made me giddy at times, exasperated at times, and reverent
and humbled at others. He said things like,
"since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;"
And I agreed....
And then he talked about how I was feeling, in a way that cliche's couldn't.
"when man determined to destroy
himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why
smashed it into because"
And he used words the way he wanted, like Hemingway had and hadn't all at once.
"pity this busy monster, manunkind"
...and...
“the coolness of your smile is
stirringofbirds between my arms”
(The last of which I particularly feel while holding you. in the sweet minutes before you fall asleep, little baby hands holding my sweater, little baby breath warm on my chest.)
I learned through being introduced to e.e.cummings that you could take a feeling of being misplaced, of being misfit and produce something functional and beautiful in it's own regard.Without limit.
I am writing this letter to tell you that very soon, we will be moving
to New Jersey. You have lived in California for seven whole months, and
next week will be your last week having the redwoods as neighbors, the
last week to see the seagulls fly in front of yellow wheat mountains, to
wiggle your little toes in the cool waters of the bay, and the last
week to watch the family of deer who live near by growing up together.
Do you remember when I told you how your Dad loves school and learning new things. Well I suppose I should also tell you that your Dad is an unusually smart man. (I'm sure he will spend a lot of your life telling you the same thing for different reasons, but I am saying this to you because it is true, and I want you to know that he is smart because he has studied and worked hard to learn and grow. Because he has not wasted his intelligence on small pleasures but built up a good man inside instead. Also because he married me. And I gave him you.)
Because your Dad is smart, and works hard, he has been accepted into Princeton. Princeton is a very good school. One of the best. But, it is far away, so for the first time in your little life, you will leave what you know, and learn to love a new home.
It won't be the last.
When I told people here that we would be moving across the country, they always asked me, "What about the baby?" Because they thought moving to New Jersey would uproot your life. Or maybe they were concerned that such a big change would be difficult with a child. People who are closer to us asked the same thing, but with a different tone. Maybe because they see a pattern beginning to form in our lives. We seem to find big changes to make often.
There is something about leaving everything that makes people panicky. Especially when there doesn't seem to be an immediate need to go. Because you are too young to remember, I want you to know that we live a good and happy life in California. It is beautiful here. We have a nice apartment on campus. There are lots of other babies for you to play with and grow with in community. We have a good church, and good friends close by. It is easy for your Dad and I to love one another here.
But there is a part of us that doesn't belong too.
I don't know if people will be still be talking about it the same way when you are older, but there is an idea that your Dad and I grew up with that says we should secure for ourselves, and most importantly for you, a nice home with as many nice things as possible. (before you worry to much about where this is going, don't. we will provide for you.) But that provision may not always look like what the culture we are in tells you it should look like.
I cannot promise you pricey electronics, or expensive clothes. You will probably not get a brand new car when you are sixteen, and when we go out it will be the exception, not the expectation to spend money where it isn't needed.
But, to make up for those things here are some things that I can promise you.
I promise you will have adventure.
I promise you will have the opportunity to make new friends often.
I promise that I will help you be unafraid of new places
and to teach you to be bold and confident in who you are.
I promise to encourage you to explore your world and your life
in ways that show you the only road to knowing, is asking the question.
I promise to respect you.
I promise you will always have someone to listen.
I promise to be reasonable, and consider your desires.
I promise to buy you a bike, and a pair of roller skates.
I promise to embrace the girl you are with enthusiasm,
and to cultivate healthy curiosity, not stifle it with the preconceptions I may have of what you should be.
I promise to celebrate you. And to recognize your accomplishments with pride.
I promise to hang your artwork on the refrigerator.
I promise you will have fun.
I promise your Dad and I will always sing songs to you.
I promise to give you the space you need to become yourself.
I promise to read you books when you are small, and buy you books when you are big.
I promise to teach you to understand need, to show you the world beyond the front porch so that you can better love others, and be grateful for what you have.
I promise to forgive you quickly and always.
I promise to always love your Dad.
And I promise to always love you.
Sometimes change will be hard. And you won't want to make it. I understand, it can be frightening. Sometimes, we may make changes only to realize we've made the wrong decision. But that is the good thing about becoming accustomed to change. It can be so many things, if you find yourself somewhere in a system you can't seem to fit into, change can easily become correction, and eventually transformation, metamorphosis, and revolution!
I am packing away your baby things this week. There are so many clothes you don't fit into anymore, because you are growing. While you were napping today, I was folding away a little sweater you wore a lot when you were smaller and it made me sad. Sometimes, I look in your crib and think, "who is this big kid in my baby's bed?" But then, when you are awake, you do something new that you've never done before and I want to cheer! I am bursting with joy at your growing abilities!
And that is what it will be like. Sometimes, it will seem as though the part you are leaving behind is so beautiful that what is ahead cannot replace the nostalgia you have.
But then. It will.
Here is to the next step in our full and rich lives together. To you, and Dad, and I. And all the places we will go together. ...............................................................................
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)
-e.e.cummings ...............................................................................
"Out there things can happen and usually do, to people as brainy and footsy as you. And when things start to happen, Don't worry, don't stew. Just go right along, You'll start happening too." -Dr. Suess
Little baby Autumn, one day I hope you find someone to love you the way your Dad has loved me. I am sure I will give you much more dating advice than you will ever ask for or need. But I want this to set the bar for you. These are the vows your Dad gave to me on our wedding day. I hope that as you grow, you will be able to see the love between us grow too. So that you will know what partnership, and companionship look like. "Endless volumes of I commit to you," and "page after page of .ibelieveinus."
"I was a man of freewill, Unbridled in all that I did.
But you’ve made me consider predestination and have faith in fate and faithfulness in all its earthy commitment .(I will never leave).
There’s no philosophy to you and me, Because love needs no introduction; No treatise to explain its existence, only consistency; only yeses that mean yes after we’ve lived through no’s that only meant not yet.
If God lives outside of space and time, then it would seem we have always been each others, Always been able to trust in the surety of providence because it could have been no other way, Unless perhaps we chose it to be; But we didn’t, we chose each other.
I know we’re not supposed to swear, but I give you my hand through all the seasons,
And I give you my bed, so you won’t ever be cold or half of what He meant us to be.
I give you my thoughts because they are yours to search, To read like literature, Like endless volumes of I commit to you, Or page after page of .ibelieveinus.
I give you my shirts because you have kept me warm when there was no comfort in logic or systems of religion; you were so often the proof in my life of Someone greater. Philosophers can never say there are no absolutes as long as there is you with me; you’ve been so faithful.
I don’t have a lot, but I’ll give you my body to you to do as you please, .I trust your touch.
I give you my scarves because no other neck smells like you and me, And I’ll give you children if you want them, we will raise eternal persons made in the same Image we were made in;
Ill give them all that has been given to me, not neglecting to pass on the Grace that helped me get to you. And when they reject it, like so many children do, I will sit and cry with you until they come home (I will never leave).
When I was a child I took my brothers room where there was grey carpet, and I always said I would have it again; But I will never carpet any grey floors without you to love autumn with me, no more of my favorite grey skies will I soak in, without usbeingoneandthesame
I know we are made of dirt and that means we will pass away or be changed, But I’m choosing to only change with you. And changing in you, I’ll take your becoming who we are in constant admiration of what it means to be one.
I can’t sing, but I’ll write to you words and letters. And I’ll give you all that I have that’s good in the world. and even if I can’t hold a tune I’ll sing to you when its just us, Wrapping
you in the melody of what it is to make it through the hard times,
living daily in the earthy striving toward the perfection of what one
day we will be.
For now the world is torn with the unknowing of the One who came. so here I purpose to have only One love before you, and from you I will accept no less than the Same.
I commit to you as one in Three.
(.I will never leave.)"
We love one another.
We love you.
We will never leave
Today, you rolled over from your tummy to your back for the first time. I cheered so loudly that I scared you and you started crying. But I was so proud! We have been waiting for this. We know that you are strong, and that your little muscles are growing and growing with all the kicking you do, but now! Now you've got moves!
I've been watching you scoot and wriggle across the living room floor on your back for weeks now. You always want to be where you aren't.
Soon, you will be crawling, and then walking, and then running and
jumping faster than I can keep up with you. Appropriately, your feet fit
into your first pair of sneakers today. They are brown and purple, and
you think they are the coolest thing you've seen. You are sitting in
your chair laughing at them and swinging them in the air. Smacking them together like Dorothy.
You're on the move. And it's happening fast. Curious little eyes, curious little hands, curious little feet.
There's something you should know about moving. It always takes you one of two places. Somewhere you've been before, or somewhere you have never been. Sometimes, you plan it. You think, I want to go here, and then you do. And sometimes you don't. Like when you rolled over today, and it caught you by surprise.
I've seen you trying. Pushing with all your strength, stretching out your neck and waving your arms. Only to find yourself still flat on your back looking up at whatever is ahead of you. And you seem fine with that. You weren't even sure there was another way to be, but somewhere inside, you knew it was there. And today, you found it.
When I was a little girl, I moved a lot. I lived in a lot of different houses (eleven!). I went to a lot of different schools (twelve!). And I went to a lot of different churches (thirteen!). I was very shy, and sometimes, it was hard to make friends. And even after I learned to make them, it would be a long time before I learned to keep them for good. You have to learn what to take from one place to the next. And what to leave behind.
That is why I am writing you this letter. To tell you about the time your Dad and I moved to California. And what we gained, and we left behind.
When your Dad asked me to marry him, he was living in Lynchburg, Virginia. A busy city that we named over long phone calls, the conservative mountain. He had gone there because he loved school, and they had a big one. A big school that was supposed to let him read all of the important books he wanted, and that was supposed to teach him big ideas for a big world. It was a school that was supposed to show him how to love God, and how to teach other people to love Him too. And he thought, "Even if they make me cut my hair, I'll go to school here. Because here, I will find what I am looking for."
I was still living in Georgia, trying to decide just exactly what it was I was looking for. Which mostly meant, I spent my money as soon as I had it on art supplies and dinner out with friends. I thought I was very artsy...and very friendly.
I painted this giraffe.
giraffe.
...and I drank a lot of coffee.
coffee.
But your Dad and I were not completely satisfied with the way we were living. And it didn't take us long to realize that at least part of what we were looking for was one another. He came back and we had a big party, and I wore a white dress, and all of your aunts and uncles, and your grandparents were there. He picked me up and we moved to the conservative mountain together. I packed all of my things and thought with excitement about how this move to Virginia was going to change my life. It took my car, his car, and a rented truck to get all of my things three states north. We thought, now that we are together, life will be good, and it will be easy to know what we are supposed to do.
But we weren't very happy in Virginia.
I had a very hard time finding a job. And when I did find work, I had to work very long days everyday. We didn't have much money. And the nice big apartment we picked out before we moved, turned out to be pretty lousy. There were noisy dogs, and noisy neighbors who yelled at one another. It didn't matter how many long hot baths I took to relax, or how many nights a week we sat outside of our favorite restaurant with our favorite people, we just did not feel like we were home. And all of those things were a byproduct of the fact that the big school your Dad was going to, turned out to be very different than we had wanted it to be.
After a year, we decided that we needed to move again.
We decided to go to California. Eight states westward. But we couldn't take all of the things we had collected. There were way too many, and a moving truck was too expensive. So your Dad made a brave suggestion. Sell it all, or give it away.
I liked my things. There were things I'd had my whole life, and new things that we had just been given for our wedding. Because I moved so many times when I was little, I held onto things that moved with me. I was nervous. Your Dad was confident. We had a bunch of stuff, and we didn't need any of it, and it was time to leave it behind. Shake the dust off our feet, and move on.
So we had a yard sale in someone else's yard. Sold what we could, and gave the rest away. We packed his little Honda with some clothes and a few special things, and we left Virginia.
First, we went home for two weeks, to say goodbye to family and friends. And driving into Atlanta was exciting. I could start to feel the hum of something new. I could sense the vacuum of routine, and empty days filling itself with hope and excitement. I could hear the world creaking as it opened up like a large gate for your Dad and I to come through for the first time.
Hello, Atlanta. It's good to see you.
We got to see our families, and spend time with our friends. We got to eat at our favorite restaurants.
that was my soup.
And then, we got to drive across the country. Together. We stayed in cheap hotels, and stopped at little diners in the middle of nowhere. We took touristy pictures, and listened to good music.We saw the desert for the first time. We saw so many kinds of desert.
Your Dad wanted a picture of a Joshua tree. And I took a picture of this
house.
the trees lean over.
Your Dad grew a beard.
...and I caught a tumbleweed.
We saw the grand canyon. It was beautiful, and I was overwhelmed. It was raining when we got there, but we walked around anyway. I was surprised and nervous that there was no guardrail to keep us from falling. It felt symbolic of this new life we were taking a chance on. I always knew there were big and beautiful things in life to be had. But for some reason I had been waiting on a tour guide to walk me through. I had been looking from behind the glass and gripping the guardrails. But here was this big open space that could not be contained or controlled or owned. I was in charge of how far I went, how much I risked. And your Dad was there with me. I felt like there wasn't anything we couldn't do or have. I never wanted to own "stuff" again. I never wanted to belong to my things so much, that I couldn't leave them behind to touch the unknown.
Your Dad took my picture when I wasn't looking, I look scared. And I was, but I was also determined to get to the edge and see out as far as I could.
There is a sensation that happens when you are walking toward something that is bigger than what is behind you. You know it when you feel it. It's like falling, and flying at the same time. And it is exhilarating.
When we got to the end of the trip, and drove into San Francisco for the first time, we were exhausted. We'd driven for eleven hours straight and it was almost two in the morning. The hotel we stayed in the night before didn't have any hot water, so we didn't get to shower. Still, we met your Uncle Gian in the city and made a few more stops before sleeping for the night.
The next day, we found the new school your Dad would be going to. We walked around campus, and drove over to what would be our first apartment in California. It wasn't ready for us to move into yet, but the men who were fixing it up let us in to see it. The view was amazing. I opened all the windows and let the wind in.
We walked around the building to a small lookout and talked about our new place, and our new life.
I didn't know you were coming yet. I didn't know how joy could be multiplied just by sharing it with you. But, I do think this move (the first of many) helped prepare me to love you a little better. It helped me to see the world with new eyes. To appreciate every little thing as a new gift and a chance to learn. A chance to grow stronger and gain perspective.
Like rolling over for the first time and being surprised I could. While all of creation, with arms in the air, cheered me on.
Your dad and I stood in front of you for a long time today trying to get you to smile for this picture.
You make us babble like giddy fools. When you smile at me, I melt. When you wrap your lips around vowel sounds trying to sound like me, I think you must be the smartest little baby girl in the world. You already have the first little white tooth peeking through, and the fuzz on your head is getting longer and longer. I've been "brushing your hair" since your second day home, but now...now you have hair to brush!
You've been cheerful and making us laugh today. You've been smiling a lot, and talking with us. We went to church in the city and when we got home, I sat you up in the pink chair with some blankets. Sitting tall like a big girl. Maybe I'm projecting, but you seemed proud.
That was this afternoon, but this morning, we woke up sleepy and frustrated. You were crying, we were up all night, there was not enough hot water in our small apartment for both your dad and I to take a shower, and nothing seemed to be where it was supposed to be.
It made me think about the day you were born. I had been pregnant for a long time, a lonnng time. Okay, so no longer than most women, but if you ask any mom who has been carrying around all the extra's that pregnancy brings for nine months (we'll talk about these when your older), it feels like an eternity at the end. Your Nana, Grandmama, and Grandaddy had all flown to California just to meet you. Everyone was so excited. It was a big day. A life changing day.
Once we were at the hospital, they gave me a gown and they gave your dad these blue hospital scrubs to wear. Everyone wanted to take pictures and talk a lot. Even your Uncle Gian came by for a minute and brought flowers and a balloon for you. It was like a party.
And all I wanted to do, was cry. I was tired. I was so tired that when the nurse told me I had to walk to the surgical room and then after you were born I would go to another room and then another room I felt like I couldn't do it. It sounds silly. I know that. I knew that then. But I was so overwhelmed and had been expecting and emotional for so long, that when it was finally time to meet you, I felt like I couldn't make the last few steps. All of the weight and work I had been holding onto to get me there to that day, caught up with me and my body felt like it was too heavy to move.
I felt like I was going to be a bad mother, because I didn't want my picture taken. And because when the nurse told me I would get to hold you, I thought I would be too exhausted.
But then.
But then, your dad and I were in the next room, waiting for you, he was stroking my hair, and holding my hand, and there was this buzzing in the air. I could feel the room getting smaller and smaller until it was just you, and I, and him.
And then we heard you cry. (and cry, and cry...) And he laughed.
And the whole room (our world) exploded out into a large and new life. Full of color, and light, and energy. There was no thing, no wall, no circumstance, no tired mom body, that could contain the bigness you brought with you.
Sometimes, it will seem like that. It will feel like you have carried the weight well. That through all of the heavy and hard times, you carried on like a champion, like a warrior. And then, at the end, it will be the small things that wear you out. The last few steps, and just a few more minutes will seem too long.
Even the people who are there, cheering you on, will make you tired.
But you are always strong enough.
You are always brave enough.
You are always enough.
And eventually, you'll finish that thing. And you will be on the other side of it, filled with joy at the gift it brought you. Swelling with pride at even the smallest accomplishments that follow as a result.
You will probably also live in an apartment that doesn't have enough hot water one day. One day, your daughter will be crying like a banshee, and your husband will stomp around the house while you feel unjustifiably sorry for yourself about how little sleep you got.
Just remember. These things are not true. You are just stuck under the shadow that accumulates because of all the unimportant life stuff that gathers itself up like clouds.
When that happens, get out of the house. It's too small. The sun will give some light and make the shadows scatter. If that isn't enough. Take a drive, the road will remind you of all the roads you haven't been on, and the cities you haven't lived in yet. Listen to music.
But be careful, some music will bring you down. Always own your music. Make sure it belongs to you, and not to your past or your doubts about who you are (you will have those sometimes. and that's okay.)
Do not be afraid of new places or people, they bring new perspective.
When you do leave the house, take a drive, listen to music, and meet new people in new places; do not smoke cigarettes. Do not drink too much wine or give too much of yourself away to things that cannot love you back home. You will learn what those look like. When you feel tired, they will glow warm like a place to rest, or they will spark exciting like a place to bring you life again. But they can fool you, trap you, and take years away from your life.
I will help you. I will help you know where true comfort and new life can be found. I'll start while you are young, while you still want to hear what I have to say.
I will spend the rest of my life standing in front of (behind and beside) you trying to make you smile. I will probably try to take pictures long after it embarrasses you. Because I am never too tired. -I am your mom. wake up,
to the grace in this life that you found. stand up, to the little things holding you down.
look around my love, look below and above.
don't talk, let the fires burn out on their own. just watch
as the fireflies guide us home.
my home, my love. from below and above.
The truth is that I wrote the first letter to you when I was young, and full of hope, and everything was big in the world. I was small.
Maybe eleven years old. Your Nana had given me a diary, it was dark green with a lock and key. It had "diary" written across it in cursive gold letters. It was the kind you will probably know nothing about. Made with cardboard and paper. The kind you lock up, because you don't want anyone to read it, comment on it, share it, or like it. I will give you one when you are eleven, and you will probably blog about it.
I didn't understand a lot about life then. I asked my friend Keri what she wrote about in her diary and she told me she wrote about boys, and that I should write about the boys I thought were cute.
But here is a terrible secret about your mom. I didn't like boys. At least, not until I was much older. I was what they call a late bloomer. Easily embarrassed any time the topic of boys came up. Only, not for the reason most girls my age were embarrassed, but because I thought there must be something wrong with me.Your friends will tell you that you should like boys. In fact, it will seem sometimes that everything in the universe is telling you that having a boyfriend makes you some sort of special. Even now, I have friends with little baby boys who talk about baby you being their baby girlfriend.
And that is okay. For some reason, grown-ups think it's cute when babies do grown-up things. (We are always trying to find ourselves in you. (you have your daddy's eyes, and you have legs like your mom...)) But this is what I will tell you. It is okay, also, if you do not like boys when you are eleven.(And I think I speak for your daddy, when I say it is okay if you do not like boys when you are thirty either). I will never ask you to grow up faster than you are ready to. The world is big, and there will be a lot of places to see, and things you will want to do. I promise to help grow a desire for those things in you as securely as the want to share them with someone special.
I didn't write about boys. I wrote about being outside, about the books I read, and about my teachers, and my family, and about your Uncle Jon, and about the girl friends I had and how they were changing around me. I wrote about what I thought my life would be like. And that included you.
One day, playing with my friend Brittany, out of things to do, I sheepishly suggested we play house. And she laughed. She laughed soundly and confidently. Like she knew exactly who she was, and who she was, was entirely too old to play with dolls. I laughed too, awkwardly and too loud, because I didn't know why who I was still wanted to play with dolls, and why it seemed to be the funniest thing in the world. We pretended to be high school kids instead. We had pretend cars, and pretend dates, and wore real pink lipstick.
When I got home, I thought a lot about myself. And I thought a lot about you. I wrote you a letter. In my green diary, and I locked it up and hid the key because I didn't want anyone to see it. I told you about how much I was going to love you. I told you about the house we were going to live in, and what kind of toys I was going to buy for you. I told you about Brittany, and Keri.
I know that maybe, I was writing to myself. That I was putting away childish things I wasn't really ready to abandon yet. I was giving them to you instead.
The day I found out you were coming was a very important day for me. I felt so many things. You were a big surprise. A wonderful, and scary surprise. I felt a lot like I did the day I wrote your first letter. I was full of hope, and very confused.
See, when I decided I wasn't a child anymore, I filled my life with a new type of childishness. I was wasteful, and reckless. I did what I thought was fun. I loved many useless things, and swirled around creative energy into big sloppy messes. Although, I didn't see it that way then.
Everything in this world, was about me. Sometimes, it was about your dad too, but mostly, it was about what I wanted, and how things made me feel.
When I knew you were coming, I knew that had to change. I quit smoking cigarettes the day I found out about you. I used to smoke. Smoking is a liar. It is something that makes you feel alive and kills you inside. You need to know that. The worst things in life manipulate you. They pretend to be yours, and take control of you instead.
You coming gave me life in so many ways.
When I found out about you, The world kept growing and shrinking in front of me. Like a pair of new lungs. It made me dizzy. It made my stomach hurt. It was like a roller coaster. It made want to throw my arms in the air and yell in excitement.
You were coming! You were mine!
I was yours.
And with that comes great responsibility I take very seriously.
When your daddy and I were married, he vowed this to me;
"...you’ve made me consider predestination and have
faith in fate and faithfulness
in all its earthy commitment .(I will never leave).
There’s no philosophy to you and me,
Because love needs no introduction;
No treatise to explain its existence,
only consistency; only yeses that mean yes after
we’ve lived through no’s that only meant not yet.
If God lives outside of space and time, then it
would seem we have always been each others,
Always been able to trust in the surety of
providence because it could have been no other way,
Unless perhaps we chose it to be;
But we didn’t, we chose each other...
...I’ll give you children if you want them,
we will raise eternal persons made in the same Image
we were made in;
Ill give them all that has been given to me,
not neglecting to
pass on the Grace that helped me get to you."
These are the best words anyone on this earth has ever given me. When I told your daddy about you. I wrote down part of our favorite poem. We love poetry. It said;
yes is a world & in this world of yes live (skilfully curled) all worlds
And that is what you coming is. It is a yes, you are ours. It is a yes, we will always love you. It is a yes, we are on your side, and it is a yes, that the world is wide open and skilfully curled.
I give you these words. They are the first of many. This is not the first letter I've written you, but it is the first letter in many I will write in getting to know who you are. And in being known by you.
We chose to name you Autumn, because we love the fall. It smells like home, and it feels like hope. It is what life is, a beginning and ending and beginning again always.
How brave these mother's are. To face the world. The possibility of life after death, both spiritual and on this earth that goes on without their little girls. How brave to accept love in light of questions about the loveless act of losing. 
