May 4, 2018
Dear Grace,
The day is finally here, your 16th birthday. Happy Birthday – I hope it’s a sweet one and that all your birthdays bring you many blessings, joys, and fond memories. I know this particular birthday you’re focused on obtaining your driver’s license! I sense nights of worry ahead. But mostly I pray for peace and joy.
You have found your way at LT. As with our usual format, I write about your teachers, but I do not know many of them this semester. I don’t seem to have the time to be as involved but please do not misconstrue that I don’t care. I’m still struggling with finding a new life for myself…eventually, it will come. I’m quite fond of your friends: Ellie, Anna, Kate, Abby, Grace, Tia, etc. and Griffin and Danny. I’m excited for your next two years of high school, for college visits, dances, soccer (or not), cross country (or not), prom, and graduation! I must confess that if you meet someone special in high school, someone who treats you with love, kindness, honor and who is funny and fun-loving, but mostly someone who you like, I would feel the move was meant to be for you too. But of course, if that scenario doesn’t happen, I believe you have proven to yourself that you are strong and resilient even under difficult circumstances.
It can be a challenge for me to remain optimistic but when I think of you and Harry, I pray that whatever negative patterns/behaviors I possess be broken and redirected so as not to derail your lives. I truly want what’s best for you and if Dad were here, I’m certain he would feel the same. This is not the life I envisioned for us when I wrote that first birthday letter in 2003, but it’s the life we have and I’m learning to be grateful for the many blessings and for the time we did have with Dad. Not a day passes that I don’t think of him and wish he were here to see how amazing you and Harry are, but he’s not, and in time, I believe I will be more settled with this very unfortunate reality. Don’t ever forget he loved you!
The final letter is a shorter one than the others, mostly because I want to make sure I give them to you today! But I have said it all before…in one way or another…I love you and Happy Birthday, dear Grace!
Love always, Mom
