I type this letter to you knowing that it may leave your
memory merely moments after you read it. That in the hustle and shuffling of trainings and papers and the climbing up and down off of stepstools and tiny student chairs
to hang bulletin boards, you’ll file this letter in the back of your mind as
something you can remind yourself to remember later. I’ve been there. I know
the craziness of making to-do lists and leaving them all around your chaos of a classroom and slapping yourself in the forehead because you forgot
to buy sticky tack for the 6th year in a row. I know you need to catch
up with your teacher friends over a blueberry muffin at your PTA back-to-school
breakfast. I know my daughter is just a name on a name tag right now so I don’t
mind if you put this out of your memory for a while. But there will come a time
when I hope you’ll remember this.
My daughter isn’t easy. Just know that I know this. I also
want you to know these few things. On a 21 hour long car trip, she spent 2
hours just holding her hand up in the air to block the blinding sun from her
infant brother’s eyes. She cries when her siblings get shots. She doesn’t know
if she wants to be a Pediatrician or a Shark scientist but she knows she’s
going to live at home with us forever. She starts each day with a cotton candy
frozen gogurt. She has a habit of letting her hands move faster than her brain
and you’re going to have to remind her an obscene number of times to keep her
hands to herself. We are teaching her not to give her toys and cash to her
friends that come and play and that her time with them is gift enough. She is a
follower down to her core and cares deeply about what others think of her.
She will walk into your classroom with her summer tan and her
hair in braids. She’ll have the standard brand new sneakers and most likely a
plastic backpack since she prefers flair over quality. She’ll be missing a few
baby teeth and her anxiety over the new setting will come out as loudness and
awkward silliness. I just hope you’ll remember to be tender with my girl. We
are working behind the scenes to help her mold herself into the person God has
meant for her to become. We are listening. We see and understand. When your patience wears thin with her, as it
most likely will, just remember she is the glue that holds me together and she is
valuable beyond words. This little person will do big things.
