Kindness, sincerely expressed by what we say and/or do, has the power to buoy our spirits and allow us, in turn, to rise up, reach out, and connect with others in caring, supportive, and collaborative ways.

I am a kind person raising a kind son. But I am not kind to myself. And I didn’t notice how mean I was until I became a mother.

When we first began trying to conceive you, I focused on remembering each detail of each day. I thought that someday you would want to know the flavor of the sky when you were made and who your parents were then

Adults can usually be relied upon to photograph one another on birthdays and major holidays, especially when a member of the family is euphemistically referred to as “getting up there.” We too easily forget the people who fill in the days in between, the friends and neighbors, those who are woven so tightly into the fabric of our everyday lives that it takes a deep, irreparable tear for us to realize how bound together we really are.

I have been in your classroom and watched 24 faces brighten in your presence. Each child feels safe and loved in your room. You value their words and demonstrate to each of them that they are important. Abby needed that, as do so many of your students.

My son had had his first bath, his first cries, his first diaper change and his first feeding. All without me. I was wheeled in a chair that screamed helpless and mounted onto the powerlessness I had felt since his birth.

Bravery, it seems, is as elusive as good taste: notable when it’s there, forgivable when it’s not. 

Had I been granted that wish to turn back time and find you sooner you would have gotten a very different person. I wouldn't have appreciated the quiet calm you bring to my life or the security that our daily routine brings.

So we don’t want our cars to show that we have kids. Or our houses. And we definitely have decided we want to erase all signs of having kids from our bodies. The quest to camouflage that we are parents is getting almost as time-intensive as having kids, which really is saying something.

I see a portal to another world: a place filled with love, life, security—a nourishing utopia, where you formed your perfect little nose, your perfect little cheeks, the perfect little wrinkle between your eyebrows, all ten perfect little fingers, and all ten perfect little toes.