Grex Parenting Conference

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Grex Parenting Item 56: Long Letter to My Daughter
Entered by md on Tue Oct 4 18:33:21 UTC 1994:

October 4, 1994 

Dear Lauren, 

My drive to work today took me past Art Start, the preschool 
you attended before starting kindergarten.  Although it was 
only four years ago, I felt a huge wave of nostalgia.  
Sometimes when we think back on especially sunny times in our 
lives, the passing of the intervening years can seem like a 
dreadful mistake, an inexplicable lapse of attention on God's 
part.  We say, "Where did it go?" as if we'd been tricked out 
of it, as if we hadn't lived through it.  

I wanted you still to be sitting next to me in the car: a four-
year-old girl in a pink sweater, and denim coveralls with pink 
kittens embroidered across the bib, and pink socks covering 
your bird-thin ankles, and heartbreaking little white canvas 
shoes (already turning grey, the color of time).  Sometimes 
when we turned into the drive the morning sun would dazzle us.  
In unison, we would cry: "Aieee!  Bright sun!"  I would take 
your hand, and we would walk from the parking lot, under the 
big trees, across the yard to the back door, which always stuck 
and required an extra-hard tug (remember?), whereupon it would 
wrench open and shudder and rattle until we closed it again 
behind us.  Then down a bright windowlit hallway, and through 
the kitchen, and finally into one of the play areas, where I 
would bend forward and you would strain upward on tiptoe and 
kiss me, and then you'd run off to take your place with the 
other children, sitting in a circle around one of the teachers 
- Miss Kathy or Miss Sue - listening to a story.  

Nowadays we go for long walks together.  We talk about mud 
puddles and jet trails, we identify trees and butterflies.  
When I imagine myself taking these walks all by myself in a few 
years, as I know I will, naming the wildplants silently to 
myself, and greeting with a silent nod the day-lily buds and 
wild blackberries you used to stop and snack on - in other 
words, when I foreglimpse my future nostalgia for our sunny 
present - it can be hard for me to go on our walks together 
without a painful lump in my throat.  Parents have an 
unpleasant way of doing that to themselves.  Instead of 
enjoying the moment, and having faith that something equally 
wonderful will take its place, we torment ourselves with 
thoughts about how quickly our children are growing, and how 
soon they will leave us.  

I went through this with your brother when he was your age, two 
years ago.  We went for a long leisurely autumn bike ride down 
into the park, along the brook and under the willows, and I 
felt sad because I sensed that this was the very last ride of 
the very last year in which we would spend the summer biking 
around together.  I was right: the next spring he and his 
friends were off on their own adventures - dads not prohibited, 
maybe, but not exactly invited, either.  

This line of thought is not healthy, I think.  I'm not one of 
your live-for-the-moment loonies, but nostalgia has its limits.  
There have been times with you kids when I actually found 
myself getting nostalgic about something that happened only a 
couple of months ago!  And I don't believe that treasuring 
one's memories and setting them down on paper is the answer, 
either.  Tell you what: "Jurassic Park" came out on video 
today.  I'm going to go and pick up a copy at K-Mart and we'll 
all watch it tonight.  Unless anyone has other plans.

6 responses total.

#1 of 6 by chelsea on Wed Oct 5 13:52:38 1994:

I've felt it too but never that eloquently.  Thanks for 
entering this, Michael.

#2 of 6 by md on Wed Oct 5 17:52:06 1994:

You're welcome, Mary.

#3 of 6 by kimba on Fri Oct 14 03:15:42 1994:

My daughter is only 9 months old, not alot to be nostolgic about yet.
But as I sorted through her clothes and realized most of them were outgrown,
and winter is approaching, they had to be replaced.  she is getting bigger,
and your words bring a tear to my eye.    Thank you.

#4 of 6 by cyberpnk on Sat Oct 15 17:22:23 1994:

I've a 3 yr. old, myself. Thanks, Michael.
<rache hugs michael>

#5 of 6 by kami on Sat Oct 15 20:41:01 1994:

re: #3- uh oh, yard sale season is almost over.  Hope there's a Kiwanis club
sale coming up.  Timothy is outgrowing shoes again.  Big foot!  Sigh.

#6 of 6 by simcha on Fri Dec 23 15:02:56 1994:

I started feeling that way when my 2nd turned 4 and I missed the babyhood
period...so I had another!  Can't keep on forever that way.  Thanks, md

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