I have a lot of writers I love. Frank McCourt, Khaled Hosseini, Toni Morrison, and J M Coetzee rank among some of my favorites. But my all time favorite writer in the history of the universe is my six year old.
I think there’s something remarkable about watching a little baby who can’t even hold up her head turn into this little person who can read and write and talk and have ideas and express those ideas as well as her creativity.
They always say all parents think their children are the greatest. And I totally get why. It’s easy to fall in love with a child. But when it’s your own and you see them at their very best and their most vulnerable, and you see them grow and change and expand… well, it’s nearly impossible to miss the miracle in that.
Last week at school, Magoo’s class was asked to write a story about spring. Hers was about Goosie taking twenty kites all at once (a very Goosie thing to do, I must say,) and drifting off into the sky with them. Magoo then went to try to save her and got carried away as well. Mae tried to join in the fun, and even though Magoo warned her against it, she hopped on followed by “Father.” All of a sudden Mom ran over and went to grab them all and ended up pulling them all down to the Earth. “How did you do that?” all the neighbors asked. I, self-deprecetangly, was thinking it must be because of my size, but then I read Magoo’s rationale. The mom saved them with a touch of love, she wrote.
And I might be the corniest, most sentimental sap in the world, but that got me. Big time.
The mother didn’t save her with her wit or her body or her intelligence or her super power. She saved her with her love.
And I’m not the smartest or the prettiest or the fastest or the most accomplished or the most disciplined. But nobody loves those girls like their father and I do.
So if I have imprinted any perception of myself onto my girls’ hearts, I pray that it would be love.
And apparently I have.
And I’m sure tomorrow she’ll probably write a story about the evil queen mother who does all sorts of wicked things to her offspring.
But today she didn’t.
I always have her keep her writings in one place so she has them to look back on when she is older.
But I took this one and put it in my pile of keepsakes so that I can look back on it when I’m older.
Because I could list for you a hundred things I do wrong in less than a moment. But here’s proof of one that I did right.
And now I’m just going to relax for the night and wrap myself up in that thought. It might be silly to let a story impact me that much. But I’m a mom. And that’s our prerogative.