To My Five-Year-Old Daughter,
As I look over at your sweetly sleeping face, I know that the world you enter now is one that is filled with challenges and hardships. Your right to do what you wish, how you wish, and with whom you wish stands on a very tenuous knife’s edge, and I hope that I and the rest of your grown-ups can help leave the world a little better than we found it.
But those are not things I can control here and now, from this desk. What I can control in this moment is what little wisdom I have gained, and what I desperately wish to impart to you throughout your childhood.
Never forget that you are special, beautiful, and powerful. You are special, just as every heart who has ever danced on this plane is unique and remarkable. You are beautiful, because you love with every fibre of your being and share the deepest truths within your soul. And you are powerful, innately, truly, and deeply, simply by the virtue of knowing and accepting the simplicity of that truth. Your power comes from believing in you.
Some will resent your sparkle. Sparkle anyway.
Some will betray your trust. Trust anyway.
Some will doubt your intentions. Be true to them anyway.
Some will try to hurt you. And some will even succeed.
But know this: the way others treat you has so much more to do with them than with you. You are your own incredible self, and others’ failure to grasp your true nature, as painful as it may be for you, is nothing compared to the tragedy they live of never seeing you for the amazing and delightful light that you are, and which you bring to the world.
Know also, that you have brought me a deeper love than I ever thought I could experience. Every laugh that peels is a thousand hugs, every smile that beams is a million sunsets, and hearing you joyously shout “Mommyyyyy” when you see me at the end of a long day heals wounds I didn’t even know I had.
You are getting older now, and this was in no way authorized by me. You no longer need me to help you dress, or eat, or do any of the million things people do in a day. But to me, you will always be the tiny newborn the nurse placed on my chest, straining her neck to meet my gaze. Even as you grow ever so taller and more independent, there will always be a place in my arms, a spot in my lap, and a kiss on any part of your face you’ll let me catch you with. Sleep well, my angel. The world is waiting for you. -Your Mother
