A Letter To My Kids

May and Jack,

Don't go. When you're gone, I won't conspire to stay up until the am hours to write, because the time when you're awake is too precious to use for writing. Where will my inspiration come from then? When you come of age, where will my reminder about where we originate and where we return to come from, if not from the purity of your childness? You trail stardust. Your minds are not informed by the influences of the world, but by the ethereal. You haven't shaken it off or had it sanitized by the construct of the modern world. The world full of people, some of whom lose their stardust along the way and spend the rest of their lives trying to find it again. It becomes elusive once they lose it. But they catch glimmers of it in the undeniable wonders of the world, the shimmery people they meet, the love they experience. It's all around them really, and it's their's to gather up again when they are ready to grab it.

When you two step outside our door with no agenda, you notice the mud puddle made from last night's rain and months of trucks treading on the gravel driveway. Jack, you kick off your crocs and dig your feet in to feel the sensation of clay in between your toes. May, you pack mud cakes together and throw them with all your nine-year-old might to see and hear the splat. The rain starts again, but just a trickle of a rain. No matter. It feels good to you, you who always run warm because of your boundless fervor for life and your insatiable energy.

I lose track of you as I, myself, who've stepped outside, take no notice of the opportunity left by the rain storm, and instead have an agenda. A list. A mission. Amidst my duties I catch you running beyond the house. You're already onto the next adventure and the dogs, curious about your excitement, are ready to participate in whatever you're onto. They're following that shimmery trail of yours.

While you were at school, the school that's a little too square for you: a bit too regimented, a bit too slow for your taste, but one which you both have learned to embrace and find the fun in, I discovered a robins' nest tucked in the eave of our seedling shelter. Remembering the bit of stardust I've held onto, I decide to set up a ladder so that we can observe the robin couple hatch and tend to their clutch. My own mother did this with my sisters and me when I was young, she's a stardust keeper. I deviate from my list and call you to the ladder to discover the nest and to find out how many eggs this robin hen has been sitting on. Four eggs, four seeds germinating in the nest, with the potential at life on the farm, flying over us in the years to come. It's a wonder.

Or maybe those robins will move on from the farm. How far do young robins relocate to start their own lives? They, like you, will accumulate the skills, the wit, and the drive to pursue life outside of the nest. And what a triumph for the hen and her seasonal mate. By the end of the month, the chicks will fledge. The parents will have sustained and fostered young life and given their chicks ample nourishment and the protection and support necessary for them to harness their instincts and come into themselves. In order to go and have a go at life.

And so, follow the robins. Go May. Go to middle school, where you will find the challenges you seek. And deepen the friendships birthed in elementary school or possibly go through the heartbreak of growing apart from them only to discover a new one to redeem it. And start to wonder about new things, experience new feelings. And get to unlock new parts of yourself.

You too. Go Jack go. Go on and leave the rainbowed kindergarten classroom. Step into first grade where you don't have to trace anymore, but instead start to stitch all of those letters together to read the infinite stories waiting for you to find them. And write down the ones you now dictate to me at the breakfast table in the mornings. Go on and lose your baby teeth. The next set is the one you've got now. Go on and forget to sit on my lap anymore. May did that too sometime around first grade.

Go, I won't stop you. I'll cheer for you. You know, as I know, that I'm always with you...and you with me, imprinted on my heart. The filaments that have connected us since you came down to us stretch, but they remain rooted in our hearts. I'll feel the tautness of them when we're apart, and when you are finding your autonomy. And I'll cherish the times when we get pulled back together. We're connected and I'm always found at the other end of the line.

Go. But all the while you're going, keep your stardust. Life is as wondrous as you think it is. It's as bright as your eager eyes. It's the grand opportunity for love, to love, to be loved.

I love you.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers. It's the honor of my lifetime.

P.s. The laying hen chicks are in. They're sweet as can be.

Thank you for reading :)

If you would like to support my writing you can do so below: