Twenty

Dearest Lauren - 

In the most recent mega-purge we’ve done in this house, I came across a printed calendar from the Dairy Board of Canada for 2004.

Filled with details of a life packed with the mundane and the fabulous. And the fabulously mundane, of course. Reminders about furnace filter replacements and meal planning,  juxtaposed with notes about dinners out with friends and junket details. (I made a LOT of jerk chicken back then, it turns out.)

On the April 2004 page, underneath a torn recipe of an apple spice cake I’ll never make and in your father’s handwriting, reads, quite simply: Lauren Denise born - 5:11 pm.

Innocuous.
But in those 28 characters, everything, and I do mean everything, changed.

Seemingly overnight, the world became scarier AND more beautiful.
It became more fragile AND more impassive.
Boundaries became more rigid AND malleable.
My sense of self expanded AND contracted.

Over the years I have tried and have failed and have tried again to convey the enormity of our love for you and the all of the you that you are. Some expressions of that have been in the letters I’ve written you on your birthday over the years. (When you turned eight,  nine,  ten,  eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen.)

I suspect accurately articulating it will elude me for all my days. 

I’ll keep trying even as, in truth, it doesn’t really matter. 
I don’t need you to know the absolute fullness of it, nor could you, really.
You already feel much of it, after all. Enormous love is hard to miss.
It’s sweet and messy and life-giving and weighty and complicated, both a blessing and a burden.

It’s actually far more important to me that you know your own love.
And as you turn 20 and I reread the aforementioned letters I’ve written you that beseech you to see yourself though my eyes, I honestly think we’re getting there.

The way you honour your body, your time, your attention…with reverence?
It’s pure inspiration to me.
As are you.

Do you remember when we inscribed in your Happy, Healthy Book for your 10th birthday with Hafiz’s poem:

“Run my dear, 
From anything, 
That may not strengthen, 
Your precious budding wings.”?

I can honestly say that you did.
You really did.

Somewhere between then and now, you stopped tolerating people who could not, would not come close to matching your spirit. Who could not, would not come alive in another’s joy. Who could not, would not have the humility to stand down when needed and to stand up when required. 

You stopped tolerating spaces and places that could not, would not offer you the container to flourish.

And you have run towards those and that which will.

Those precious budding wings have transformed into powerful, graceful and elegant ones. 
Through your devotion, tenacity and deep appreciation for the good.
And they will take you to great heights.

The nest is always here for you, for you to rest your head and heart.
For tea and popcorn and for tea-spilling and laundry and kitchen dance parties laughter and non sequiturs and sorting out the complexities and blue sky dreaming.

Because you were always intended to soar, Beloved.
And to watch you take flight is the greatest blessing.
Well, second only to being your parents.

With all I have and with all I am, I adore you.
WE adore you.
Happy 20th.

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