Dear Mom,
I remember, just a few years ago, I wrote you a letter. It had it all (if I do say so myself), humor, sincerity, sentimentality, and love. I highlighted that letter with images of us through the years. It was a young girl's letter to her mother, a young girl who was not yet a mother herself.
This year, I'm writing a letter and it's from one mother to another. Kind of cool huh? It's like now we're part of the same secret club. A club of sleepless nights, endless worry, and boundless love. I officially joined the club on 2/7/17, although I was an honorary member for almost ten months before that.
A lot of people thought I was crazy (including the nurses) when I showed up to the hospital with two cameras. One for me and one for Mike. The birth didn't go quite as planned, and my pictures aren't quite as interesting as I thought they would be. Endless hours of a failed induction just don't make for exciting imagery. But you know what does? The moment your mother sees her granddaughter for the first time.
I watched you hold her. It's not your first time being a grandmother (I already knew you were awesome at it) but to me, it's almost like it is. To me it's all new. It's heart wrenching (in a good way) and mind blowing. In short, it's glorious.
You came to visit recently and started singing to Lucy. A song you used to sing to me.
"Turn around and you're tiny,
Turn around and you're grown,
Turn around and you're a young wife with babes of your own"
I burst into tears watching the two of you on the couch. I'm not even sure you noticed. I basically had to leave the room choking back sobs. If you love me half as much as I love Lucy (of course you do), how has your heart not exploded by now?
And ps. can I still be your baby, if I have a baby of my own?
There are so many beautiful moments already, how will my heart have room for more? I love how much she loves you. And that when we talk on the phone she gets excited and talks to you too. I love that you sing her all of MY favorite songs, and some new ones that I have never heard before. I love that when you visit, I have company when I nurse her and I love watching the way she settles into you when I need a little break.
I love that you love her unabashedly. You remind me that being serious is totally overrated.
I love watching you with her, and seeing a glimpse of what my early childhood was like. How amazing it must have been to have you as a mom before I can remember it. To witness how safe and happy I must have felt in your arms.
And from the way that she looks at you, I know that she agrees. Mom, you walk on water.
Thank you. Thank you for sticking by me through thick and thin. For loving me when it was hard and when it was easy. For always trying to make me see the best in others and in myself. Thank you mom, for always being the mom that I needed. For being exactly the mom that I still need. Thank you for showing me how to be that kind of mom for Lucy. I couldn't ask for a better role model.
I hope you are having the happiest of days today. I hope its full of sunshine, wild things and bird song.
xoxo
