I Hope…

I’ll be with you. Even if you cannot see me. I will be with you when you look at the trees, when you step on a rock, when you hear the sound of rushing water.

I will be with you when you go to watch that movie with the ones you love. I will be with you when you attempt to make a meal.

I will be with you when you read a book, when you struggle to prepare for a test. I will be with you always.

If there is nothing after this life I will still be with you. You are a part of me and I am a part of you. You have learned from me, but I have learned much more from you.

You taught me to have more compassion and understanding with your relentless questions about life. I am happy to have answered every single one of them even if I seemed to be lost or not paying attention wholeheartedly.

You showed me how to appreciate the simple beauty in things that I had taken for granted.

I cannot imagine the last time I will say goodbye to you or say I love you or even the last time I will carry you into bed. I will cherish those times especially when you wake up a little when I pick you up and you snuggle more into me.

I have no clue what you will want to be when you grow up. I imagine you will change your mind as many times as you change your mind when it comes to your choice in halloween costumes, which today is Doc Brown from Back to the Future.

I hope that you appreciate that life is a rollercoaster of ups and downs and that you cannot have one without the other. Bad times will not last and neither will the very best.

I hope you live a full life, not the same days over and over for many years. That is not a life. Do not live a life of quiet desperation because that is what you think you are supposed to do. There is more than one way to do this.

I hope you continue to challenge those around you with your curiosity, intelligence, and wit.

I struggle to not tell you that you are smart because I want you to develop grit. I want to laugh at you when you cleverly respond to me but I need to be the no parent so you don’t grow up to be a jerk.

I know there will come a day where you say you hate me, or you don’t want to be around me. I hope that it doesn’t happen and if it does it is ever so brief.

I hope you find that making mistakes is a part of life that shows you are trying and you have learned from me that making them isn’t a bad thing.

I hope that when it comes time that you read this if you ever read this that you have these same feelings toward someone else.

I love you.