Grace Like a Cookie Plate
Dear Dungarees,
A letter to my adult children. The Magnificent Five.
To my firstborn daughter, I have always loved you the most, for you taught me how to love. Your moonlight beauty and grace, your thoughtfulness, introspection, and quick humor play a haunting alluring melody. Anyone who is fortunate enough to witness your spirit is captivated by its pull. You are a shield, a quiet protector, kind, spicy, powerful, thoughtful, and talented beyond reason. Your heart for justice and peace in the inner man is fierce and needed. Being with you feels like being in an enchanted forest by a glacial stream surrounded by trees and misty fog. Still, quiet, honored, mysterious, safe.
To my second-born daughter, I have always loved you the most, for you taught me how to laugh. You are so lovely, with your sunshine sparkles, and your ability to have fun like a child. You have an uncommon elegance, a whimsical beauty, and the ability to make people feel seen with your thoughtful inclusive spirit. As the ultimate safe haven, you are the place people can go without fear of being broken. Your dark humor is unmatched by any other and just entering a room will light up any space and the people in it and make it shine. When I'm with you, it feels like spending a summer day at Blue Bay, with the open sky, warmth, beauty, clear waters, dazzling sparkles, and more warmth and comfort than any person can comprehend.
To my third and last daughter, I have always loved you the most, for you taught me how to pray. The beauty of your starlight is exquisite, dark, mysterious, quirky, and full of life. There is more power and force within you than you realize. Your spirited, fierce nature and your adorable comedic energetic self are perfect in your body, and you allow people to feel comfortable with you, despite sometimes struggling to find a safe space for yourself. It is easy for you to connect with people, to make them feel important, to make them feel as though they matter. In every place you go, you find your people and your family: you are a survivor, a gypsy, and a loyal friend. When I am around you, it feels as if I am outside wrapped up warm on a winter night watching the sky for wishing stars. I feel the vastness of the world as it excites, empowers, and scares me, but it also enchants me like nothing else can.
To my firstborn son, I have always loved you the most, for you taught me how to relax. You have the ability to be such a grounding presence, you attract wisdom of the ages, and you are able to make everyone, ALL people, feel like they belong, that they matter, and that their way of being is perfect. You see the old and forgotten as treasures and make them feel seen and loved, you are present in every moment even when the moment may be hard or overwhelming. Being present is a gift so rarely seen anymore. Your eyes carry an understanding and strength in kindness I’ve never seen before. Makes me want to just stare at your face and absorb the perfection of the smile lines around your eyes when I see you. Being with you is like sitting with an old friend in a quiet library in a forest surrounded by first-edition books, a crackling fireplace, windows and doors open to the crisp fall breeze at dusk, and a 12-string guitar playing in the background.
To the son for whom my soul prayed, I have always loved you the most, for you taught me how to see miracles. You are the embodiment of life, energy, charisma, and strength. As a natural-born leader and friend, you are so loyal and trustworthy. You have never met a person who isn't a friend or a potential friend. You are the ultimate hype person and you know no strangers. Your smile and energy can brighten anybody's day, even the hardest of days. You have a fun, boisterous, energetic, hilarious spirit. You're always looking out for people, have such a tender heart towards children and a natural ability to teach and you have SO much love to give. You see everyone as equal and worthy of a conversation and smile, regardless of their wealth, poverty, family, or happiness. Being with you feels like being at a football game on homecoming weekend with the star quarterback. There is always an air of excitement and expectation of winning surrounding you. Your laugh and spirit are contagious and inviting. You draw people in like gravity holds our feet to the earth. So naturally.
I sometimes carry my momming mistakes like an armful of heavy chopped wood. Like a child learning to ride a bike, I balance my strengths and weaknesses poorly and often fall. In the end, I know you won't remember me teetering between courage and deficiencies as I made a woodpile of mistakes. But I hope you remember what a beautiful mess of humanity I am. We grow through the messy and never through the comfort. So I pray a beautiful messy life for you all with patches of comfort as a rest for your soul. (For soul work is exhausting and hard but you are stronger and more capable than you feel.) In the areas where I struggled, I pray you do not. I hope that you always take grace like a child takes cookies from a cookie plate for yourself and freely gives it to others.
I am wholeheartedly in love with each of you. I adore you endlessly. And I’m so thankful you carry pieces of me into the world and I carry pieces of you. I am a better person for knowing and loving you.
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. 1 John 3.
For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. John 1:16
