Today we have a special treat. My mom. I cajoled her into joining my Monday night writing workshop, and as one participant said, “She blew the roof off.”
I agree. My mom can write. You’ll see. I hope you enjoy today’s letter and find pieces of your story inside hers. We are, after all, more similar than we are different.
Dear Jacqueline,
A few months ago you began gathering your journals together in the hopes of finding a silver thread that would tie 70 years of living and thinking together. You found them in bins, in drawers, and in boxes. You cleaned out a storage unit and found them there, too. Those smelled of mildew. You made note that it might be a fitting epitaph to your life. Believe me, it will not.
There were the early poems to your first husband. The letters to your mother as she lay dying and the lists of things your children were involved in. There were notes about beautiful pieces of music to buy and books to read. Those first attempts at finding your creative voice were hard won. After all, how many journals did you begin with the hope of writing every day, cover to cover? And how many, sweet Jesus, did you complete? Not one. Discipline in this part of your life would receive you no gold stars, darlin. Or, as your daughter said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
Remember that poem you just found, the one about when you wake up from this life? You wrote that 20 years ago and you’ve been sleeping still. And the truth is, while you may have started stitching your life together with crimson colored threads, you have forgotten what makes you sparkle inside.
Here, I'll help you remember.
The cardinals singing their call and response when you walked early this morning.
Reading the letter your oldest sister wrote to your parents, telling of the turtle you and that other sister caught and carried home to your grandparents. You smiled big when reading that letter.
Your new love of a certain Irish group may border on obsession, but oh the beauty of their voices and the splendor of 11 guitars in harmony. It’s enough to cause you to dream about ditching your fear of flying and getting to that pub in Ireland just to hear them sing live.
Walking your dog yesterday down to the creek, the way he went to the water and then turned to ask permission to drink. What kind of love is this? Stop asking. You know. It is enough to fill you up.
Most of your adult life you believed you needed initials after your name to be seen. Something that said, “ Here am I.” Isn’t that why you dreamed of acting? You know that the desire to be seen was born of those years of feeling invisible. But, dear Jacqueline, you were never invisible. Not to those that loved you.
You may have forgotten what love looked like. I have not.
Remember when your sister recently found the note you wrote your grandmother, the one you hid in her kitchen cupboard, hoping she would find it after you had gone home from a summer vacation? She found it. She saved it. She saw you and she loved you.
Remember working in the garden with your grandfather? How you knew he wanted you by him. You knew what love looked like. You knew what it meant to feel safe.
Remember reuniting with your very good friend from high school and the story she told about you riding her horse in eighth grade? She said “ You convinced me to let you ride her. And you were so proud of yourself.” You had forgotten this. She did not.
While everyone has a story to tell, sometimes we forget those first, foundational chapters. Yet, it is those first days and years of living that mark us, and later, remind us of who we really are.
Today, I want to remind you that who you are is enough. That the tears you weep when you witness kindness is because you have a beautiful heart. That your heart, once wounded, and now opened, is a sign of grace. I want to tell you that the joy you find in sunrise and sunset, in the wind, in an old hymn that stirs memories of heaven in you, that THAT joy is enough.
You don’t have to be wise. You don’t have to make a point. You don’t have to be anything more than what you are are. A lover of beauty.
And a beloved.
Shine, Jacqueline. Shine.
My mom is not a German Shepard, but she has one. Meet Jager.
Lovely! “Mom is not German Shepherd…” don’t ever lose that wit 😂