40 Letters of Love: Dear Gabre

Dear Gabre,

Today we celebrate your 7^th birthday. I almost wrote 8^th - I think because you have been talking about being 7 since you turned 6. You are always ready for a celebration.

I started to write this to let others know a little bit more of who you are, but then I would be writing to others. This is #40loveletters and this is my love letter to you. What is it that I want you to hear on this day about my love for you?

You are both a mama and a daddy’s girl with plenty of love and snuggles to go around.

You love all things shoes, especially if they sparkle and you long for the day you can wear high heels. You walk around the house in mine better than I can. Speaking of sparkle- you also love nails- bright, glittery and even fake. Your first grade teacher always has ‘fancy’ nails and it endeared her to you right away.

You have no fear. You will swim in 50 degree water, especially if your Aunt Lena is involved. You will jump off any height. You give me heart palpitations on the regular.

But most of all- you are Joy. 

You bring to our family laughter and celebration. At 7 you sometimes still confuse words that your dad and I find adorable and your siblings find hilarious. I should have known when you called a bathing suit “suit cases” at the age of 2, you would be a lifelong explorer of trying out new words.

Your joy explodes into big energy- you cartwheel your way around life- in the house, on the soccer field and much to your daddy’s dismay, through the restaurant. Any patch of clear ground seems worthy of a cartwheel.

In the past 3 weeks, something with reading has started to click and you are so proud. On Sunday you asked to sit and read to me two different times. I noticed the shift.

You see you hate things that are hard and avoid them if possible. With all that Joy, you aren’t quite sure what to do with sadness. You explain away a tear from a sad movie as something in your eye. You make us laugh when the book is too hard to read. You shut down in anger when one of us has hurt your feelings.

While I didn’t quite know where this letter was going when it began, now I know what I wanted you to hear on this day about my love for you. I love all of you- the Joy, the laughs, the playful spirit AND the anger, the sorrow, the times you are unsure.

You belong. You don’t need to hide away the hard pieces in order to be loved. They are just as beautiful. You are made in the image of the divine and She is smiling at all you are today as we celebrate your 7^th birthday.

Love,

Me

40 Letters of Love: Dear Gratitude

Dear Gratitude,

Perhaps it is cliche that I'm writing to you as we head into Thanksgiving, but if anything has changed me, it's you. How do I say I'm grateful to gratitude? I'm not sure, but I do know this...

Watching a daddy play with his kids in the ocean from my chair on the beach, you overwhelmed me.

Receiving a gift delivered to my door from a friend on one of my darkest days with a note of love and prayer, you overwhelmed me.

Listening to the rain on the front porch of the cabin, you overwhelmed me.

Laughing along to a text thread from friends, you overwhelmed me.

Watching as my daughter plays with my niece, you overwhelmed me.

Dancing in the kitchen with the girls, you overwhelmed me.

During an expected hug at an unexpected time, you overwhelmed me.

Gratitude, you are a constant. Choosing you is not.

The Joy I receive when I fully step into you is one not describable by a pen to a page, but I couldn't let 40 Love Letters go on without you.

Thank you gratitude.

Love,
Me

40 Letters of Love: Dear Couple on the Elevator

Dear Couple on the Elevator,

The couple with the insults poorly veiled as compliments. The ones with one last dig before you hopped off about coconut oil. The ones who think that because you are black you can say anything you want to me about my black daughter. You caught me completely off guard. Our family of five were joyfully heading up to the pool deck after dinner for some mini golf and Beauty and the Beast when you both decided to speak to Gabre about her hair.

I have started this letter to you many times since that night, but it wasn't a love letter. My anger was still protecting me from my pain. 

You see, you hurt me that night. You criticized the thing I think that hurts many women the most- you criticized my ability to mother.

What I wanted to say to you that night through my tears cried alone in the cruise ship bathroom was that I am trying my best. I have read books, watched videos, joined groups and sought advice from women of color with whom I have relationship.

What I wanted to say was that you have no idea of the history and the trauma of my child. You have no idea the hours where the two of us both cried because everything was knotted up and I didn't know what to do.

What I wanted to say was that you don't know how much this little girl now loves for her mama to do her hair. How often we get compliments from women of color. How there are no longer tears but fun and experimenting together when it is hair time.

What I wanted to say was that you don't know how this little girl dreams of long hair. How once when her hair had gotten so unhealthy because I couldn't quite figure things out, we cut it short and she mourned the loss of that hair. How she loves how it is growing out and when she swims she loves to have it down to feel it on her back. It brings her such joy and I know the cost to her hair- but her joy is worth it.

What I wanted to say was that on this night she finally let her older sister do her hair- an important thing for them and that while no it wasn't perfect- it was perfect to them.

Because while you know so much more about black hair, I know so much more about this precious child. And I will continue to do all I can to seek women of color to speak into both of our lives, but you are a stranger to me so your words were only hurtful.

But this is a love letter, so what I want to say to you now Dear Couple on the Elevator is this- I realize in your hurtful words you had a need to protect my daughter and I am grateful for that. I am even more grateful for the women in my life who have lovingly come beside us and I offer this letter to them in love and thanksgiving. Adoption has way more complexities that I could have even imagined, but at the end of the day what is left for me through adoption is a son and a daughter.

I pray the world can remember that and offer us love over judgement.

Love,
Me

40 Letters of Love: Dear Anger

Dear Anger,

Seems strange that this would be a love letter since that's not normally how I would say I feel about you. But you are teaching me- about myself and others.

I know you are there as a protector. Trying to protect from the true emotion lying underneath- fear or heartache or anxiousness or not enough or ego or...

I'm starting to feel you in my body- usually too late, but sometimes in just enough time to say, I see you there. I see you there trying to protect me from ____________ and I would like you to leave. I'm going to choose something else.

I recognize now how you sometimes come out in me from someone else's version of you. Anger in response to anger. I think you are a protection then too. Easier to respond to anger with anger than with love, with empathy, with understanding.

And then there are the times I notice you because one of my loved ones is hurting. Much easier to have you and be angry at the person/ the system/ the situation that caused the pain then it is to sit with them in it and have to feel it myself.

I'm starting to be a watchful observer of you in others, even when you are not directed at me. I see you covering something else up. I see you create a story for them that they were wronged, mistreated, or right. May I observe with empathy.

Yoda once said to young Anika, "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering".

Thank you for trying to protect us, anger. But I hope to continue to observe you, then wink at you while asking you to leave. I hope you build my awareness and most especially my love.

Yes- even you anger- something to help me choose to love.

Love,
Me