Dear Laney Jayne

Dear Laney Jayne,

Tonight my heart is bursting with love and gratitude for you, my beautiful girl.  You saw it in my eyes when you came home from school, and you faced it head on like you do most everything. 

"Mom, I know you are sick.  Please don't feel like you have to come tonight.  There will be other programs. . . Oh, don't cry.  It's okay.  Really." 

Your fifth grade Christmas extravaganza is happening now.  You've practiced enthusiastically for months.  Your gorgeous voice has been singing the songs over and over here at home.  I hear you in the morning.  I hear you in your sun filled room in the afternoon.  I hear you in the shower. I hear you at night when I'm tucking sissy in, and I come in and fuss for you to try to stop singing.  It's just in your heart.  You have always had a song in your heart.  Despite my increasing social anxiety and inability to physically endure preparing for any kind of event or actually attend it, I wanted to be there.  I want to be there now. 

I am so proud of you.  You have worked so hard at everything you have tried.  You have taken all the responsibility for your heavy school load, extra curricular program and your music.  You are thriving, Delaney.  Even when you come home, and I have already clocked out for the day because of pain, you remain cheerful and helpful and loving to me.  You meet me where I am probably more than any other person in my life.  You never make me feel guilty or manipulate this very difficult situation.  You still love to be with me when I am grumpy or sad.  When I look in your eyes I know I have to keep fighting so I can see what happens next.

You are everything I dreamed you would be.  You are kind.  You are generous.  You are brave.  Oh my, you are are so brave.  You are strong like I wish I could be.  You are wise way beyond your years.  You are funny.  You make me laugh out loud.  You are crazy creative.  You are bright.  I mean like the sun.  You are smart too.  You are tough as nails but have the most tender heart.  It's a perfect mix.  You are grateful.  Ten year old girls aren't supposed to know to be this way.  You are a leader.  You know who you are.  You know who God made you to be.  You are so much more.  You are the most. 

When I look into your piercing blue eyes and try to count the cinnamon sugar on your nose and cheeks and when I kiss you on your head and touch the gold in your hair I still catch my breath.  When I see you first thing in the morning, you are a bubble floating into my day.  When I tuck you in at night, you are a perfect punctuation mark to all the good and bad and in between. When I doubt why God could have put me here.  When I ask Him why He is keeping me here.  He answers with you.

I love you Laney.  There has never been a minute in your life I wasn't carrying the awareness of the extreme treasure you are.  I worry sometimes that you won't know how I feel.  I feel afraid I can't love you well enough because I am such a different kind of mom than most everyone else.  That's why I'm writing this now.  Maybe someday I'll be healthy again and will attend your daughter's Christmas programs.  Maybe I will be sicker or even gone, and you will have to navigate even more life without me physically present.  However it goes, I need you to understand my heart for you. 

It's LOVE.  Simple.  True.  Forever. 

Mom