Dear Child,
I think sometimes over the course of your life, I’ve been pre-occupied with your physical safety and I’ve forgotten that the development of your character is equally important.
Although I give myself a lot of leeway in this department – sometimes keeping you safe was a full time job. Especially since you had one time cut your knee very badly after standing outside in my shoes and literally just falling over. To this day, I wonder if I should have taken you to the hospital for stitches.
What I loved most about you when you were little was your sense of self. You never cared what anyone else thought, you liked what you liked, and it didn’t matter if anyone else liked it or thought it was cool. And this attitude carried over to school, where you would play with anyone and everyone. No one was excluded from your games.
Report cards streamed in every year with comments about how fair you were and how you always included kids who were normally left out. Teachers remarked that other kids would come to you for decisions because you could always be counted on to help them find a solution that was just.
I believed that your character was due, in part, to the television shows you watched. You had seen every episode of Dukes of Hazzard multiple times and the Walton’s were another of your favourites. Shows like the Dukes always included the good guys winning in the end and the bad guys getting what was coming to them. I mentioned this to someone one time – that I wondered if these shows had influenced your way of thinking, but they noted that perhaps you were drawn to these shows because they aligned with your values.
Even now, into your twenties, you still have a large group of friends, a lot of whom you attended kindergarten with. This is one of my favourite parts of living in a small town.
You came into the kitchen the other day, upset. You had bought a dirt bike off of a kid you knew and you knowingly paid more than the bike was worth, because the kid was hurting for money. But then it turned out that his father had taken the money because the bike had originally been his. You didn’t like the father and you wouldn’t have paid that much for the bike had you bought it directly from him.
I smiled. I hold a firm belief that how things play out is not up to us, but to God. We can only control our actions and I couldn’t have been more proud of yours. You certainly do not have an abundance of money – you live paycheck to paycheck. But you basically gave this kid money because you knew he was in a worse spot than you right now. That to me, speaks volumes about your integrity and character. And you didn’t even realize what an amazing thing you did.
I’ll continue to worry about your physical safety as you and your friends ride your dirt bikes, and race your suped-up lawn mowers and play with your trucks in the mud, but my heart is full with the knowledge that the fairness and equality you developed in your childhood has carried through to your adult years and your sense of compassion and willingness to help others is strong.
I was always so proud of that little boy, with his easy smile and sense of self, but I’m even more proud of the adult you’ve become.
Love Mom
xoxo
