A letter to my daughter on her first birthday

My sweet Avenue Cora,

Tonight, I picked you up, changed you, kissed every inch of your soft, baby chub body….each arm roll and chubby cheek, laid you down on the last night before you turn one, left the room, and cried.

When I think about your presence in our lives, despite every fiber of my being trying to find a more eloquent and artistic word, the only one that repeats in my mind is joy.

You are a calm and laid back old soul, with a streak of fiery stubbornness. I’ll never forget when they laid you on my chest, looking down at the top of your head and being in complete and utter shock that you had red hair. My sweet ginger baby, our special gift.

I have thought about what to write in this letter to you for almost a month, and continuously avoided it, knowing that as soon as I sat down to think about putting into words what you mean to me and what I someday wanted you to know…would be emotionally hard to bare.

As I sit here with a permanent lump in my throat, a flood of things are coming to me of things I want you to know.

As you go through life, there will be situations where you are bullied and objectified. You will be told your body is too big, too small, that your hair is too red, that you wear too much makeup and not enough make up. You will choose the wrong friends sometimes, and you will hurt others. You will be excluded, and it will hurt. You will be told your opinions and feelings don’t matter, and it will hurt. You will be told you’re not smart enough, not good enough, not pretty enough, or not nice enough. When you are kind and soft, you will be thought of as weak and when you are brave, bold and tough you will be thought of as too aggressive.

My painful and overwhelming longing is that you are instilled with enough fearlessness to not give a thought or care to any of those opinions and social judgements cast upon you the minute you entered human existence. I would love to say that I could protect you from all of it, but the reality is, I can’t. I have the same painful longing as every mother in all realms of time to keep you from the world’s cruelty, but it will come. I only hope that I can guide you to love yourself and others enough to have your light shine brighter than any of those clouds of darkness.

 
I want you to know that you can do absolutely anything you want to do. Having a daughter has lit a fire in me to raise you to believe that about yourself, and to raise a son who sees women as not only an equal counterpart, but more than that try to completely erase or at least blur those lines that some parts of society will try to create in your mind for you both.

You are serious, but sweet.

You are strong-willed and relentless, but hilarious.

I want you to know that the right thing is rarely the easy thing, but do it anyway. Be kind, gracious, generous, and forgive. No, you won’t know that the homeless person you hand money to won’t spend it on something else than what you're giving it for. Give it anyway. You are my beautiful prize, my precious ruby. I love you more every day.

As I sit here and think about all of the amazing things, the hard times are easily masked. But the reality of motherhood is that the hard times are very real. There are days I know I don’t give you enough of myself. I know I don’t feed you as healthy as I should or spend as much quality time as I could. There are times I am so frustrated and exhausted from the constant of this stage of life, I let go emotionally and pray for bedtime to come faster, and last longer. I have learned from others that I will someday be longing for this time back, but for now, living in this stage of life, that sentiment is masked by exhaustion and a loss of personal freedom. I try to hold on to those words of the wise and cherish moments I can’t get back.

Your brother adores you, as we all do.

He has reached the beginning of the lifelong stage where he gets so much joy out of terrorizing his sister.

I don’t think this will ever end, but I hope and pray neither will his love for you or desire to protect and defend you to the death. He will always need his sister. Be there for him, love him, and remind him of his talents and his worth. You are so different from him, you are so sure of yourself (already) and always have been. “Mentally tough” is how we’ve described you in your first year. Fearless and unphased…a problem solver. I hope you keep that.

My life has been fuller, happier, and so very rich with you in it. I love you forever and always, my sweet honey bear.

Xoxo….

Your Mama