Dear Daughter

I thought last year was my first mother’s day, but I must admit my job was much easier when you were still in your fetal state. You were safely close by but I always had my hands free, I slept all night aside from bathroom breaks and I could take you anywhere and everywhere. Back then I could feel your tiny heart beat but life had hardly begun ... for either of us.

Today I woke up to the sound of your cry, the same way I start most days now. In those moments you remind me that I’m alive and you define so many reasons why. To hold your ever-growing body in my arms. Arms that have never been stronger. Or more gentle. Because they’ve never held anything so valuable. This sweet girl who smiles at me every time I open her car door, mirrors her dad as she pulls on her ear, gently touches my face when I cradle her, loves to hold hands as she falls asleep, scrunches her nose in excitement when we call out to her. You’ve turned your dad into a body guard with a baby voice. You’ve turned me into a mother. Our girl.

I thought I knew what being a parent entailed. I thought I’d taken the classes and read it all. I’d put in the hours and stood in the middle of the beautiful chaos that is motherhood that year as an au pair. Back then my responsibility was four fold and yet I didn’t have a clue. Life comes equipped with so many lessons and you are a catalyst and the best of them all.

You will come to know me as many things, but timely isn’t one of them. In a perfect world I would have written this to you at the stroke of midnight or as the sun rose on this imperfectly perfect occasion. Instead another 24 hours creep by and we are both another day older, another day wiser. I reflect today on what to say in such an important letter, as we venture about our morning in a pile of laundry, in a pool in the bathtub, among the pages of your story books, knotted on the floor as I cuddle you to sleep. How can you possibly put something so intangible into words? I will spend the rest of my life attempting to express how much you mean to me.

Timeliness is a struggle for me. But you came at the perfect time – surprising and unexpected, like the best treasures. I spent most of my life imagining you, as a kid who toted her baby dolls everywhere, to an adult gazing up at the sky in search of a glimpse of your face. I’m rarely early and so often late. But you had perfect timing, shifting mine and your dad’s world into perspective and teaching us the meaning of love.

This is the hardest role I’ve ever taken on, but that’s because it means so much. Because you mean so much. I will certainly fall short of perfection. I will lose my temper. I won’t have all the answers. I will be late when I shouldn’t be. But I will always love you and I will never stop trying to be all that I can be as your mother.

The day you called out to me as mama was the second best day. Second to the first day I held you. And many days will come close as you continue to learn and grow and grace us with your beautiful spirit. You are the very best of me. And I pray that I continue to seed into you all of the good things that this life has to offer. There will be grinches to meet and messes to clean. There will be wounds to tend to and hard days to endure, but we will always have each other and what a story we will share. I am so eternally grateful to be yours, to spend my days with you and to call you mine. Little lion of mine.