The screeching tonight at dinner had us all kinds of overloaded.

So many words from so many beautiful faces.

Attempting to follow the rollercoaster of feelings each one was emoting,

in that moment you looked at me and said “four years ago tonight if we had known…”

No truer words spoken.

If we had known of all the growing to take place, would we have stood in front of the alter arms outstretched?

If it had been foretold, the broken nights, the feeling of the free fall, would we have danced until our feet swelled?

Yes.

I didn’t want to wander any longer. I had found my home in your arms.

And so here we are.

The tears, the laughter, the noise, four years in and still making sense of how to navigate these roads.

Your love has brought me closer to who I am meant to be.

I am bolder. I am humbler.

I have emerged from a deep, dark valley and with your help found a way back to my soul.

I wouldn’t trade a second of these last 35,040 hours.

The next year will mark more transitions but this I know- with your love, your guiding light, home will feel brighter and my life lighter.

Thank you for your yes.

It was always you.

All my love,

H

PS- What more could be said then this?

September 24, 2021

Dear Ellery Jane,

No one could have readied me for the role of your Momma. While you may have been the last of the babies born from my body, you are a force singularly unique. A child that requires me to live life fully awake.

At any moment you may ask me to describe how clouds are made or why God let’s bad things happen to good people and bad people to have good things.

I am grateful for your questions. They stretch me and everyone in our orbit.

I am so proud of how you wear both your hurt and your happiness. You let us see it and in so doing give each of us permission to do the same.

From the time you started preschool your teachers have been consistent in their comments-

“She is a leader.”

“She sees everyone and seeks to make them feel included.”

“She is a helper.”

This past year I have watched you become even more of the person God is calling you to be.

You’ve dug deep, made new friends and found a new sport.

I couldn’t be prouder of the person you are.

Thank you for your jokes, your impersonations, your stories, your thought provoking questions and for your pursuit of what is right and true.

I cannot wait to see what this year holds for you.

All my love,

always and forever,

Your Momma

PS- This year’s song says it all…..

Dear Sidney Reagan,

Where to start? Probably with the minute that cry turned me toward motherhood.

In the operating room, questioning the anesthesiologist, “Whose baby is that?”.

The answer, you were mine.

The early days, us figuring each other out. Your spirited determination to do everything sooner, faster.

First roll, first words, first walk, all ahead of schedule.

I would crawl a hundred miles if it meant I could relive those moments.

But, as you have always done, you push me past my comfort zone, into new spaces.

Today I parent a person on the edge of independence.

As a young adult I would get embarrassed when Papi told strangers about my accomplishments- the Giant Eagle clerk about my Junior Miss title, the Starbucks barista about the college scholarships. If he were alive today I have no doubt he would utilize Facebook more like a brag book.

I thought he bragged because he felt my work was an extension of his work. I understand now he spoke those words because he stood in wonder.

I feel the same way.

I am in awe of the young women you have become, of all you have done and all you desire.

I see a women whose confident, strong, stable, inquisitive, loving, thoughtful and purposeful in the pursuit of what sets her soul on fire.

Please know my love for you was never, could never, be contingent on what you have or will accomplish.

I am more interested in telling anyone who will listen about your grades, your golf score and your Glinda rides because it speaks of a Sidney who works hard, tries new things, challenges herself.

Oh this next year will be full, soak in its magic.

Be proud of the friends you’ve made and the life you are living out.

Happiest of birthdays my beautiful girl.

I’m so glad God made you mine seventeen years ago today.

Love,

Your Momma

P.S. – I hope you know that joy and pain each need their time to shine….

This I know;

the hard days lead to the good,

the showing up is more important then the speaking,

a life lived well is a life where love alters others.

In our small space she was all of the above, all that I knew.

Her presence punctuated the good and right.

The cards on birthdays, the special events she didn’t miss-

she showed up, for decades.

And now her time here with me has ended.

I think of the love story she gave.

The husband, my uncle, whose devotion taught-

this is the sacrament of matrimony.

Grateful for the gift of her life.

And in this I know, for all my life, her love informed.

Until our tomorrows meet, I will remember the gifts you gave.

He grounded me in place and time.

I always thinking of next and him always believing in now.

This past month threw me for a loop yet in it I heard his voice.

“Think less of tomorrow and more of today”, he whispered.

So I sat in the questions and resolutely refused to ponder what future days could hold.

Instead of the what if game, I day dreamed – could I not see the sun’s rays better when basking in its glory?

Nothing ever turns out like one thinks so why sit in potential sorrow.

My worried soul needed his words and they found me.

I was ok.

A bit battered, yet set free by the turning inward.

Gifts are passed in the genetic make up,

tiny cells reappearing for future generations benefit.

He taught me to be alright and I was.

Today I am here.

I interviewed him once for my Girl Scout God and Country badge.

I asked him about his faith journey and what brought him to the pulpit.

He told me a story of being a college student in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and walking in the woods.

The young man who had grown up in the city of Philadelphia with it’s noise and bustle, thousands of miles from home, finding clarity in the stillness of the trees.

My nine year old mind imagined there was snow and a booming voice from God asking him to head to the seminary.

In reality I’m sure it was a quiet whisper that guided him to Gettysburg.

Turns out his story chased me here. The little girl that heard his words sought her own calling.

I found it in the stillness. When all else was stripped away it came by whisper.

When he spoke of a longing of the heart, he spoke of me here.

Each day finds us feeling a little more familiar with this place.

As animals come to find their home here, we come to understand how their presence adds more life to our lives.

The barn, now warmed by their bodies, has become welcoming.

Girls in the pasture curled up with puppies.

Goats trailing waiting for a treat.

A cat that has yet to kill a mouse, but looks regal in his pursuit.

Each morning the act of that barn door swinging wide feels like the opening of a present. You wonder what you will find.

As we settle in to this life of service, to a place that demands much, we find ourselves, a little more of who he is calling us to be.

The days pass.

No time to write or walk.

It’s become a gallop.

This life living on the land always demands more.

So things fall away.

The evenings lingering over books or laughing at the screen have become chores and projects and watching sunsets from the pasture.

There is a ton left to learn.

With each new morning comes an opportunity to understand how little I know about our rural way of life.

Forgive me for my absence.

As the sun begins to set later and the bones become tired from the work, my hope is my fingers will find a place on the keyboard and sharing more of this beautiful place will be my blessing to you.

January 12, 2021

Dear Audrey,

You have always been the girl with the bright eyes and big heart.

My tenderhearted child, you taught me how to live in the moment, to chase sunsets and rainbows.

It feels, most days, that your mere presence brings the sun.

Thank you for sharing your fun facts and your thought provoking questions;

for your show stopping hugs and your up for anything attitude;

and thank you for loving us through the hard days and laughing with us at the good.

Audrey Hope you make me proud.

Being your Momma is life’s greatest gift.

When you look back at this year I hope you can see the rose in spite of the thorns.

I will always be here.

Together, somewhere between a dance party and a book club, we will navigate these teenage years.

You are my joy.

Happiest of birthday’s my baby girl.

I love you.

Momma

P.S. The song is so fitting! What do you think about trying this on your guitar???

The coming came from a quiet whisper, a longing of the heart.

The desire to raise girls connected to a place, pieces of memory to carry them through life.

The same had been given to me, a beach house in North Carolina became an island off the South Georgia Coast I could gift to them.

First coming with a baby in diapers and continuing to come after a broken marriage threatened to break us.

As one could expect this place calmed the storm, healing was found on her shores.

The smell of cinnamon rolls and the 8am crew sitting watch in the corner rounds at Sweet Mama’s will forever line their senses.

The sunrise cups of coffee, East beach walks at sunset, the dogs on the shore line, the days spent lingering in stores, the laughing over plates of saltwater morsels, the masses at St. William, these will be what carries them through the hard days.

Sidney, who first came at six years, now looks back on ten years gone and finds the place has woven itself into the soul.

As independence sits at her doorstep this momma can’t help but be grateful for the gift of a place.

This Christmas I will bask in the joy of sitting with the salt at her feet and knowing that roots have given her wings.