Love Letter.

Dear Parker,

On the eve of you turning 5 years old, (actually, in 20 minutes it will be midnight.) I got the inspiration to write you a letter. You’re sleeping now, snoring just the tiniest snore. From time to time, I watch you sleep. Your chest rises up and down gently with each breath. Your breathing, more often than not, sends me to sleep. Like a neighboring lullaby just close enough to perceive and feel. After I finish this, I will lift you up from your “bed” on the floor (blankets upon blankets, 4 pillows, 2 stuffed animals!) and I’ll place you in bed alongside me. Even when you’re not here for the night, I position your pillow beside of mine. You are an immeasurable comfort object to me. Occasionally, I wonder if our roles have reversed.


It’s peculiar for me to believe that you will not remember much from these days of your life. Looking back, I recall bits and pieces of my 4 year old self. Mostly minute things. Injuries. A frightening experience. Haphazard things that had no significance. If you remember anything at all, I hope it’s the way that my love felt. Larger than the ocean, stronger than the thickest steel, everlasting and undeniable. These days, you and I talk and talk and talk until you can’t talk anymore. But trust me, you can. You always have words to say. You are unlike any other 4/5 year old I’ve ever met or even heard about. Everyone says how intelligent and sophisticated you are. I am bursting with pride, continually.


I keep asking you “Can’t you just stay four forever?!” and you’ll laugh and say “Mommy, I can’t. I gotta grow up. That’s just what happens!” And then other times I’ll say “Parker, will you be my Baby forever?” and you will say “Even when I’m old. Even when I’m 192 and you’re an old woman. I’ll always be your baby.”


I know it might be silly, but I think we have a bond unlike most other parents’ bonds with their children. We are connected, attached. I want to reveal to you all the paramount parts of this world, not just pacify you until Kindergarten and beyond. I plan to experience things WITH you and learn along your side. Nothing on this Earth is better than viewing the world through your eyes.


When you’re reading this, I can’t envision what age you will be. Certainly a teenager would cringe and throw this paper onto the floor. 20 something? Would you even comprehend it then? Maybe I will show you this the night you embrace your own newborn baby, the night your heart swells up and spills over, filling your entire being with the love I feel for you now. (and always will.)


I am having a challenging time with allowing you to grow up. You are my miniature Best Friend, for now. There are issues I sincerely regret, such as not ending up with your Father. That’s a hurt right now that still stings me profoundly, deep inside my core. I’m dealing with that now, ongoing and rebuilding. Truthfully, I wished for that for you. The happiest of cheerful families, that unattainable unit you read about in books or see in the movies. I know, it’s crazy. But, I just wanted to give you It All. Currently, it’s just the two of us. I’m okay with that. Dissatisfied at times, and lonely, yes, but, we are enduring and living and for right now, it seems… right.


My love has developed for you, each year, each day, each hour. I can’t even glance back into my past and see if I loved you this amount, as much as I do now. I can’t imagine that I did, though I loved you with everything in me from the first night I met you. I recall the nurse carrying you to me, and I had not a clue what to do with you. It was just the two of us. I carefully laid you on my chest, and you slept. I could feel your warm heartbeat on top of my own. I was 21 years old, and I thought to myself “Oh wow. So this is what LOVE feels like.”


Even now (the clock just struck midnight. You are five now!), You will ask me to “hold you like a Baby”. And I do. You will suck your thumb and snuggle up as close as you can. You take the deepest sniff of air through your nose and say “Ahhhh, the Mommy Smell.” Sometimes you’ll drift into hazy slumber. Other times you’ll pretend for a minute or so and then burst out laughing when I catch you with one eye open. We laugh the best laughs together.


These are the times I won’t forget. The days I get all to myself, because you will never remember. But this letter.. I hope that it illustrates all the love and devotion that I pour into being your Mother. Out of all the things I could (and want) to be in this world, that is the most rewarding.


You are my light in life, my Sweet Baby. Happy 5th Birthday.


I love you, “bigger than Jupiter!”