“Dear Mom …”

Could any two words in the history of written language EVER melt a heart so quickly as they do mine? OH, but the irony here! In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a very sentimental person. It’s all those little things in my life, like the sticks, the rocks, the dried-up flowers, and love notes from my people that mean literally “everything” to me … and yes, to the best of my ability … I KEEP THEM ALL! I’ve had this love note from Gia to me and Zack resting on the typing stand on my desk since literally the day I found it waiting on my keyboard to be found as a surprise and read, “November 29, 2014”. The other one, however, I only recently found when I was shuffling through a stack of papers that were inside my desk that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with. You know the stack? “Toss it, or keep it? Hmm. I’ll just keep it and deal with it later!” Meanwhile, years later, and ya FINALLY start going through it all!

The love note from Christian (“Circa 2008”, age 16) was also left as a surprise for me to find on the keyboard of my computer when I was still living at His house with all of them. Sadly, it wasn’t too long afterwards that I’d made my final exit once and for all. And by the way, how completely crazy is it that both their notes were done in either the same or a very similar font? For the record, I chose today to publish this post because it’s “midway” between November 29th and December 18th. I just split the difference and landed here!

I’m not gonna lie, when I found Christian’s note it tore me up pretty good, but not in the traditional “torn up” way. It was good. Bittersweet tears flowing from my eyes at just the right time and space. It’s these precious little bits of “everything” from days gone by that remind me that although I’ve definitely had my fair share of screw ups and not-so-stellar mom moments, at the end of the day, this is what I’ve been fighting for. I carry them while they carry me forward as a Light to punctuate their dark.

In being honest, these love notes from my kids do also make me a little bit sad. That king who gave us absolutely everything never had this as a child, and that’s what eventually broke him. She shattered him into pieces and now he’s gone. Luckily, however, I can let him rest in peace knowing that he did finally have a home and “everything” to carry him through the season we were lucky enough to call him ours.