Birthday

Dear Dayna,


As I watched you grow in my enlarging tummy 20 years ago today, I recall that I was pleased and joyful that you joined our family. I was surprised, even then, at your determination. Although you had tried to be born two months earlier, you managed to wait and come six days early. The labor I had with you was the only one of my seven children who started without medical assistance.

As I watched you grow in that small, 600 square foot student apartment with your 3 year-old sister and 2 year-old brother, you learned quickly. You crawled out of your crib easily. You were tying your shoes and putting 30-piece puzzles together at the age of three. You were reading on your own by age four. Principals and teachers were calling me to caution me to let you “be a child” when I was doing nothing but that. You had a thirst for knowledge and a near photographic memory.

As I watched you grow, I discovered a parent has to learn that they cannot be everywhere at once, and protect their child from everything. A wise parent doesn’t even try, but instead finds something else to do and tries to forget that their child is thirty feet off the ground in a tree.

As I watched you grow, I saw that miracles were in the insignificant little moments. I was pleased to see in you a person who was willing to make it a point to cherish and draw children to you. Christ Himself loved little children, in their simplicity. As a mother, I got to see a little bit of myself by dealing with the character traits that you must have endured in me. Watching you boss your younger siblings around is to see myself as a mother and was not always flattering.

As I watched you grow I saw the responsibility that you took upon yourself as being a member of a large family. The loss of individual time with your parents was compensated by watching you interact with your siblings. To have had only you would have been to miss seeing you from so many other angles—as an adored big sister, a bossy pain, a younger sister who wanted to do the same things her big brother and sister did, as a fellow friend to play with.

As I watched you grow, and through your siblings, I learned what it is to love someone no matter what—no matter what time it is, no matter what you've broken, no matter what you've done, or said, or stuck to the walls. The years of your childhood have been a blur of activity, of joys and tears, a million things going on every single day. I saw in you a whole world of priceless and often indescribable things—everything from the outgoing and social personality that is a miniscule part of myself, to your witty and often punny comments that I’ve come to love in your dad.

As I watched you grow, I often heard that I would have eighteen years and then I would have to trust in the things that we taught you to be on your own. Little did I know that I would have to let you go many times: those times when I left you in your classroom at Kindergarten, to watching you struggle with peer pressure, seeing you drive away with your father with all of your things jammed into the seats of the car, and then, tearfully letting you go to live with your Father in Heaven.

As I watched you grow, I had no idea how short those 19 ½ years would seem once they were over, and yet, it still seems like it was forever. It has given me an idea of God’s time, where a thousand years is as a day, and a day is a thousand years. I often wish that I could just sit and talk with you again, for an hour, about the tiny little things that have happened and how you see them now with new perspective. Perhaps I could ask you how you feel and you’d respond, “Like a million bucks! But then I would be dry and green, so that might not be accurate.” Maybe I could spend that time brushing your hair again, noticing the tiny freckle on your chin, and seeing your eyes sparkle when you talk. How I would yearn to see in that hour, you roll your eyes and tell me that I worry too much! But yet, at the same time, I know that if I were given that hour again with you, I know that it still wouldn’t be enough. I believe that it is a time for all of us to mourn the loss of what I have known, and to look eagerly forward to whatever lies ahead, in the unknown.

As you now watch me grow, you will see and understand that I have seen His humity and gentleness. I have learned a million things about myself and gained a new appreciation for the unconditional and boundless love God has for me. I have grown in faith. I have been reminded of God’s handiwork in galaxies so huge we cannot begin to comprehend them, and at the same time the microscopic details that we cannot see. I now know something of patience, trust and of “letting go and letting God.”

As God watches me grow, I hope He will see how grateful I am for those 19 ½ years that I got to know and love you. I know he will continue to guide me and help me become the pearl that I need to be. It gives me chills to think that God has created a young woman of such beauty and promise and I got to be a part of that. I will be forever grateful for the Atoning sacrifice that will one day allow me to watch you grow again. I look forward to the time when I will see you and see what you have become. I know I’ll be pleased to see whatever it is.


Love,
Mom