To my son on his tenth birthday

Dear Kaleb,

    I started this letter on your tenth birthday. While my students were busy writing their own essays, I sat on my side of the screen and jotted notes about what it felt like to celebrate ten with you. The two words that came to mind were empty and full. 

    You were at school by that point. That morning you had been eager to get there so that you could enjoy your birthday with your classmates. You talked about passing out stickers to everyone, sharing popsicles together. 

    Now three weeks later, we can still hardly believe it, bud. You are officially in the double digits. Every once in a while someone in the family pauses and says, "He's ten. I can't believe it." In two years you will enter middle school. I can feel time sliding along so rapidly, it's almost tangible. You are not a baby. But you will always be my baby. 

    What do I want you to remember about your ten year old self? Most of the things I can think of will probably still be true of you in two, five, or even ten more years, because at ten, you are comfortably and assuredly you. That's not to say you won't keep changing and growing, but your essential nature seems well established and definitively formed. You take up space in the world. You should take up space in the world. 

    At ten you are still intuitive, kind, and loving. You are still strong-willed and self-confident. You are still interested in everyone and everything around you. You are also interested in being like your peers. When you noted a classmate bringing salad to school every day, you wanted to do it, too, because you both love salad. When you noticed that some of your classmates had the same facemasks as you, you started picking those masks more often and told me every time who else has the same one. When the ground was still green, you brought your football to school so you could get a game going at recess. When your sisters sit down to make something--draw, cook, crochet--you get tools out for yourself to follow suit. I don't think you do these things because you have no preferences of your own. Quite the contrary, in fact. Your preference is the people who matter to you. You've figured out that one way to express your love of people is to take up the things they love, too. This doesn't surprise me about you at all. It's how you've always been. Before you had words, you had eyes and hands. You'd train your eyes on me and cup my face with your pudgy little palms and utter your one lovely syllable, "Ah." And I knew you were seeing right into me. And asking me to see you, too. I see you, son. I do. 

First birthday

    It's a been a year since the pandemic began reshaping our way of life. What it has stolen from you, in particular, is connection with others. It stole your special education services for a while. It stole school. It stole church. It stole play dates. It stole travel and adventure. And then it even stole our extended family. It has stolen all your favorite things. We have tried our best to be all those things for you during a loss that we know is not forever but still drags long. At some level, the five of us have all become better at being together. But I have a feeling that when the key turns in our locked up lives, you will blow through those doors and tackle your world again.

    Recently, I posted a picture of the two of us on Instagram and noted that you are always by my side. This is true. You are. But today as I dropped you off at school and you walked backwards down the school hallway so that you could wave to me and blow kisses until the last possible second, I realized that you don't need me as much as I think you do. I remember reaching this same realization about your sisters. It's right that you don't; it's what all good parents are busy doing in those early years--helping their littles to become independent and slowly releasing them to become their own individual selves. I think that little extra that it's taken to help you successfully reach ten is going to require a little extra effort on my part to let you go.

    So, on an ordinary Thursday morning, a few weeks after your tenth birthday, I waved you all the way down the hall on your backwards journey laughing, while tears slid down my cheeks. Happy-sad. It's the almost constant emotional state of parenting in these middle years--at least for this mom. I am happy-sad that a decade has passed since a delivery doctor laid you in my arms. I am happy-sad to see you trot all by yourself into school. I am happy-sad to spend so much time with you during this pandemic, knowing that as precious and challenging as it is for both of us, I'll miss it when it's over. (Who wouldn't want a constant playmate who thinks all her jokes are hilarious, even when they're not?) 

    A decade from now you'll be twenty. And what will I say then on your birthday? I hope I will say the same thing I've said every year. You are lovely and good. You are brave and smart. You are precious and worthy. You were put here to take up space in your world. To change our world with your insistence on being visible and present and heard.

    That January 29th, 2011 morning when winter light was just starting to slant into our hospital delivery room, I could hold all of you in my open and waiting arms without much trouble at all. You were tiny and delicate. You needed us in a way you will never really need us again. What do our arms hold now? 

    So much we can barely contain it. That's what growing up is, bud. It's not loss. It's all gain. My arms open a little wider every year. We both gain a little more freedom with each passing phase, but at the same time, I have to release you just a little more. Though it's not always easy for this mom to do that, the necessity of doing it bears its own kind of beauty.

    God must have known how much I needed a Kaleb like you in my life. Our surprising little caboose. Our big, bold boy. Our world changer. May the space you fill in our lives continue to grow into something rich and lasting you offer your world. Tall order? Impossible hope? No way. You're already on your way.