This one's for the girl

For my tall daughter, the child who made me a mother, who came into the world with a face to match my own:

This is a love letter to you.

Yesterday I sat in our backyard and promised to stop telling stories about you in your presence. I know you are embarrassed when I talk about you with other people, even when the stories are praiseworthy. I see how you wish you could disappear sometimes, how it takes all the courage you can muster to say “shikamoo” and “sijambo” to these friendly Tanzanians, enamored as they are of your blond hair and blue eyes. And I know I seem callous and mean, laughing over the lovely things you do and forcing you to answer when people speak to you.

You are seven years old now but tall enough to be ten, and all too soon you will be ten and then thirteen, and believe it or not, I remember being thirteen. I remember feeling painfully self-conscious, by turns convinced that no one noticed me and everyone noticed me. I remember being mad at my own mother, stomping through the woods kicking acorns, too full of myself to understand how little I understood.

I was thirteen when I flew in an airplane for the first time, hurtling over the gaping chasm of the Grand Canyon, peering down at the Colorado River snaking through it. But you, dear daughter, have already flown in 23 airplanes, over three continents, and dipped your toes into three of the earth’s oceans. You’ve called four different houses “home” in your short life, and in every place, you've grown in maturity, in passion, and in peace. In every place, you've been a loyal friend to your peers—the kind of friend who observes everything about everyone, who makes peace in the midst of quarrels.

And you are the kind of friend who makes peace in our home. You are a playmate for your little brother and a helpmate for your little sister, and I honestly don’t know if I could have survived the last two years without you. On a recent afternoon, we were in the kitchen cooking dinner together: your brother was peeling onions, and you were chopping tomatoes, and your small sister was crying to be picked up, and I was wearily, angrily telling her that I couldn’t pick her up just then. And in your generous and sensitive way, you stepped in without being asked:  you put down the tomatoes and knife, scooped up your sister, held her for a moment, and then said, “Would you like me to read you a book?” I watched you carry her to the couch and begin to read, and I was overwhelmed with gratitude to God for you. At seven years old, you have the instincts of a 27-year-old, and the Lord must have known I needed you.

I will do my best to keep my promise, tall daughter. I will stop telling stories about you in your presence... but I will never stop being proud of you.

I give you the grace to be mad at me and feel embarrassed by me. I pray that you can forgive me my failures, even as you learn to forgive your own. And I pray that you will always know (as I did deep down, even in my childhood angst) that you are loved. You are small, and you are big. You are weak, and you are strong. You are imperfect, and you are precious. You are less and more than you think you are, for you are a beloved child of God, and in the light of his glory, you are glorious.