Audrey,
You’re nine now. It’s strange.
We talk a lot these days about how I’ve known you since you were a baby—a handful of potential who I rocked in the dark when your momma went to work before the sun rose. I learned to use your car seat in the middle of a snowstorm. I learned you in giggles and songs.
You don’t use a car seat now. Only because my sister and mom told me I had to stop. I would have a custom protective car bubble built for you if that was a thing. For that matter, I would have a custom protective life bubble built for you. Because you will always be that baby in my arms—always that tender and open, always deserving of the greatest safety and love.
Yesterday when you got into my car after school you hit your knee hard. You are still little enough to want me to pull over the car and look at it. You wanted my comfort and tried to pull your sequined skinny jeans up to show me your pain. I promised you ice when we got home and you didn’t hesitate to let me take care of your seatbelt—maybe for the last time. It might always be the last time. Tender and open, you let me give you safety and love.
I told my mom yesterday that I love you so much it hurts. My tender heart wants to call bullshit (we don’t say that word) on every wise person who says we cannot protect you from suffering, failure and disappointment. I don’t even like writing the word failure in a sentence about you. You will never be a failure to me or your momma. Ever. Your existence in the world is the antonym of failure, and you could spend every day for the rest of your life trying to be a failure and it would be the one thing you could not succeed at. My God, Audrey Kait, you will forever be a success in our eyes.
But the suffering and the disappointment are just…here.
You have been curious about our unhoused neighbors since you could point, but now simple answers to your big question are not enough. Your voice cracks with worry. You tell me how the world should be, and what we should do about it right this moment. I promise you I will get cash to keep in the car for the people you see at intersections.
You’ve been paying attention to every nook and cranny from the beginning. I adore this about you, and I hate it for you. I want you to “just be a kid,” to be oblivious to the complexities of the world, the layers of pain you will find here.
But the truth is I like the kid you are—the one who is watching, wondering, plotting. The one who always shows concern about a friend being left out, someone missing a fun activity, people having trouble at home. You are only nine years new in this world and you already see people. You really, truly see people. I don’t think you know how rare that is, and yet you know of no other way to exist in the world.
Loving people is hard. It will break your heart—I can already see glimpses of the heaviness that is love in your eyes. But little girl, your life will be so much better for the love you bring.
You feel deep and big—you and I cut from the same cloth. “Feelings wheel,” you say. I pull the rainbow circle cut into pie pieces up on my computer and watch you think and begin to point. You are tired, excited, confident, confused, sad.
You are still learning what to do with all that is inside of you—trying to figure out the words to put your insides out. You will light the world on fire with those feelings and you will struggle to not light yourself on fire in the process. But Momma and I will be there every step of the way to protect your bright light and to hold you when it all gets to be too hot.
You're learning who you are now and it is wondrous to behold. Yesterday you showed me one of your dances from your first musical, and I about died. Yes, from your cuteness, but it was more than that. You were happy. There was uninhibited joy as you moved your body, as your brain ran through the steps, as you let me know what parts you still didn’t know, not with anxiety but with a love for this thing you are doing. You are finding your things, your places, you people and the relief, the gratitude, the hope I feel for your precious soul walking through an often brutal world is incalculable.
This past year has not been easy for you. You have learned that the world is not always a friendly supportive place. That peoples’ definitions of success are narrow. That compare and compete are core values of our society. You have begun to feel injustice and inequity despite not knowing those words. You have felt sadness and confusion over much more than what one toy you can pick out from the store. You’ve learned you may see people but that doesn’t mean they see you.
We see you, Audrey. Me and Momma and a dozen other people see you. My friend Glennon says the world is “brutiful,” a confusing mix of brutal and beautiful. This year you have seen the brutal and through it all you have been beautiful. You have laughed and cried—for our tears are beauty, too. You have roller bladed and created the most stunning art. You have been brave: trying out for your first play, making new friends, finding joy in the midst of pain. You have made me laugh as hard as your momma makes me laugh, and she is the funniest person I know. You have never reminded me more of your momma than with your quick wit. And you are at that age where you laugh at your own jokes as much as I do. My God, Audrey Kait, I love laughing with you. I love the voices you have made up for every dog in our family, and I love every time you ask me for “a cuppa tea” with pinky in the air and spot-on British accent. Your laughter is beauty in waves of sound.
I could never have known in those rolls of soft baby flesh what you were. Who you were. And now…nine years, little one. Nine years. And I’ll never get over one single day I’ve had you.
Do you know how much I love you?
Holly
Excruciating, the love. I felt every word.
This is so, so beautiful. I love it. Thank you for sharing.