Thursday, May 27, 2010

Dear Meg - You Lost a Tooth!

Dear Meg,

You lost your tooth this evening.  The very first one to come out was the first one that came in back when you were a baby.  A simple tooth shouldn't make me so emotional .. but it does.  It makes me stop and think about how you are growing up so fast, and right before my eyes.  I love having you little.  Simply.

You were at Aunt Bonnie's this evening when this major event happened.  I missed it.  But when you came home, you were so excited and told me every detail over and over ... then you went on to tell me exactly how the tooth fairy comes and brings you a dollar.  You brushed your teeth so good and checked them to make sure they were shiny so she could look in your mouth, and see the little hole, so she would know it was really your tooth.  I love your reasoning ... just as much as I love you.  You always figure it out.

So in the morning when you wake up ... under your pillow along with a gold dollar coin will be a letter to you.  A love letter from me written on the pretty stationery that I bought in anticipation of this day.  Forever long as I live, in many years to come, I hope, you will see this little tooth again, and only then can you read the letters that you'll have from me .. along with each little tooth wrapped in gauze and placed inside the envelope.  Timed and dated with a rundown of your day today!

Yes, I'm overly sentimental ... and yes, your little tooth is not the first little tooth that I have saved, and your letter is not the first one that I've written over something as silly as a little white tooth.  I have a whole packet of little teeth just like yours ... saved from over twenty years earlier of the little teeth Josh, Juli, Joey and Jared had lost when they were little.

Happy Dreams Meggie!  I love your new smile!

Love,   Mom

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Mom - I Love You in Heaven Now


If you look close ... you can see that there is an Oak Tree growing.  It wasn't here this morning, but this evening when I checked it, it had sprouted and I can already see the beginning of it's branches where the bud is splitting.

Last week, it was only an acorn that I planted.  I love this little tree and it means so much to me.  My friends at work bought it in memory of my Mother who passed away almost two weeks ago.  It's as if I have something more than just her memory to hang onto.

They didn't know my Mom, but it was very special to me that they chose an Oak tree because my Mother was a very strong person.  She never bent, nor broke, and she endured so much when we were kids.  She gave so much, and took so little, and I never realized that until I lost her.  She gave to us when she was hungry, and she did without so that we would have.  She loved us more than life, and that too I didn't realize until she was gone. 

As I've sat here and looked at her picture above me, I've realized so much that I wish I could go back and change.  I would have visited more often, and I would have called her more than once a day.  I would have spent more time with her ... but as her child, it never occurred to me that my Mom would die. I loved her, and she loved me ... and for fifty-three years we both knew that.

On Mother's Day this year, I knew that it would be the last one I would spend with her here on Earth.  She was ready to go ... so willingly, but I wasn't so willing to let her go.  She told us that she was at the gate in Heaven, and she told us that Jesus was there and so was her Mother ... and she wanted to go, and my heart just broke.  When you truly love someone maturely, you love them enough to let them go.  I know that my Mom is in Heaven, and I know that she is in a better place, but I can't get past this pain I feel.

Her visitation was on my Birthday, and I waited all day for her to call me.  Most years she called before the sun came up and wished me Happy Birthday, and every year that I can remember she told me the exact time that I was born, and how I changed her life.  I was her first child, and I was the one that gave her the name Mother.  She had just turned eighteen when I was born.  She told me over and over how she washed my diapers and they were snow white, and about the little apartment she and my Dad lived in while he was in the Army, and how when they came back home she was so happy.  I can still hear her voice telling me the story from many years of hearing it ... but what I would give if I could only hear her say it one more time.


For all of us that have lost our Mother's ... my heart aches for us.  I can't imagine that this hole in my heart will ever heal or that a day will go by that I won't feel so empty or so broken.  I can't imagine that the heaviness I feel will go away, or my need for my Mother becomes less.  Even though I'm grown, she was the one that I turned to to answer my questions or to help me, or for advice.  She taught me so much from the time I was little to now.  She healed my hurts right up until she left us.  I never knew how much I needed her until I lost her.

All the memories of the things Mom taught me suddenly became so much more ... it's all the little things that mattered the most.  My Mother was all about the little things in life, and my promise to her memory is to make sure that the little things in life are the things I'll build in my kids.  When my kids tell my story, I hope they tell it with the same love for me that I have for my Mom.

This little sprout of a tree will be here long after I'm already with her again, but in the meantime I'm going to water it and give it all the love it needs ... just like my Mom did for me.

I Love You Mom.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Graduation - The Littles - Chapter 15

Dear Littles,

I guess you're really not little anymore are you?  But to me, I guess you always will be.

You graduated a couple of weeks ago.  Although you will have several or many more graduations and milestones in your life, this one really was so important.  You see, it is the beginning of your life.  Your life outside of me.  Not your physical birth, but your birth into the world.  Your life away from me ... and you will go happily and you will see all the wonders of the world through your own eyes.  You will spread your wings and find the YOU that will emerge into citizens and you will leave your mark.  You will be going to Kindergarten in the Fall ... whether I'm ready or not, you are.

I molded you, and it is breaking my heart that I have to let you go.  Five years wasn't nearly long enough to prepare me for this.  Even though I've been through sending my children off to school before, this feels fresh, and I don't want to do it.

Because I want what is best for you, I do want you to grow up and be normal and make life long friends.  I want you to be smart and learn all that you can ... and I want you to make your mark.  I want it to be deep and strong and always be there.  I want your children to look back and know who you were and know that you were good people.

But for today ... I want you to be my babies, and I want to hug you up and smell you and close my eyes and remember you in all your innocence.

I Love You So Much!

Mom

Sunday, May 23, 2010

T-Ball! Strike Three!

We have one more game left in this season ... and you guys are awesome.  We don't have to lead you out to the field this year, and we don't have to run the bases with you and hold your hands.  You're doing just fine being one fourth of the team.  You have got it going!

The best part of playing ball is the dirt right out beyond second base, right along with that free freezer pop at the end of the game!

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Joey and Mariah - Graduation

 Dear Joey,

St. Louis Christian College - May 8th, 2010.  I can not even begin to say the words of how proud of you I am.  This was a long road for you, but one that I knew that you would finish.  It isn't about graduating from college or graduating as a Minister ... but what you are prepared to do with your life.

I think about your childhood and all the silly things you did ... and your teenage years when what you did wasn't so silly.  Then I think abut the man that you've become and what you yet have to experience, and how life isn't always going to be fair .. but mainly I know that you can handle anything because of who you are.  You are prepared.  For Life ... because of Faith, and for that I am so proud of you.

Not only are you wise in your choices, but who you chose will always be there for you.  You two build each other up and have so much wisdom for your young years.  I love you both so much .. and I am so honored that my Son and my Daughter in-law are both children of God, and are both now Ministers of God's Word.

How Blessed can a Mother be?!