I can do this blogging thing. I really can.

Molly Graduates!

I know how I can go forward on this blog. I can write about...

LOVE.

As in, "All you need is..."

And, "Crazy little thing called..."

Also, "Let's do it, let's fall in..."

This start-again-with-the-blog post is not about Beatles, Freddy Mercury or Cole Porter LOVE.  I want to tell you about the love that's plastered all over the Internet.  I'm talking the love that dares, big time, to call its name.  We're talking -

MOMMY BLOGGER LOVE.

And, that Mommy Blogger Love? Is aimed smack dab at that cap and gowned kiddo you see here, my Molly, who just graduated from high school, turned 18 four days later then took off to backpack in Peru - all in the course of a month. Just like that, one month and the 215 months before that, and now it's all over: her childhood. Finished, checked off, done, finito.

Yeah, yeah, I know. We parent our kids until, well, we're dead. And beyond the grave in the more neurotic parent-child dyads. But, for all intent and purposes, Molly is a Young Adult, moving on to college (at our excellent community college - bless you, our dear child, for that wise move) (and I need to tell you immediately, Internet, that the kid was accepted to a four year college, but she doesn't know what she wants to do, so she's going to SAVE HER PARENTS MONEY by living at home and getting her general ed requirements completed locally) and, sometime in the next two weeks, Machu Pichu, for crying out loud, where she will undoubtedly be chewing coca leaves as I know you and I would do, given the legal access as they have in the higher elevations of Peru.

Back to the love, the big mushy love we profess on our mommy blogs. Screw that nonsense that all we talk about is poop and pre-school. Sure, we do that and more (hell, I blogged about the time Molly threw a party at the house without my permission and part of her punishment was that I got to blog about it), but we're really talking about loving our children so much we have to write about it, much to the chagrin of many, especially those who get pissy that while we're waxing lovingly about our kids and their excrement (and the forbidden parties) we make money and get free appliances and trips to big companies who ply us with handsome swag.

For the record, that level of swag does not come my way.

Better than swag, this came my way:  An opportunity given to me - and Molly's Bio-Dad and my Hubs/her Step-Dad - to surprise the kid with a letter from each of us, tucked into a folder of her best work in AP English. This brilliant plan was put together by Molly's brilliant teacher, Ms. Miranda, who secretly e-mailed all of us and asked that we write to our children of the pride, wishes and hopes we have for them. The fabulous Ms. Miranda then printed our letters out and stashed them in each student's portfolio. Shout out to great teachers like Ms. Miranda!

Here is my letter, and here, unabashed and unashamed, in front of the entire Internet and God and everyone else, is the love I have for my kid:

June, 2009

Dear Molly,

I'm sending this to you via your wonderful AP English teacher Ms. Miranda's email because when you read this again sometime in the 2060's you'll wax nostalgically about the good old Internet days, before everyone started communicating telepathically through "neural-mailing". After talking about Twitter and texting, your grand-kids will roll their eyes and go back to their "neural-Game Boy" in which they direct the action on their monitors with their eyeballs.

I'm not going to waste our time by quoting John Donne or Yogi Berra. It's just as well, in your next four years in college, you'll get a goodly dose of Donne and maybe, if you're really unlucky, the Confessions of St. Augustine, if that's still taught in Western Civ. And, certainly between your Dad and your Uncle Mark, you have access to a vast reservoir of baseball trivia which no doubt includes the many quotations of the great Yogi.

Rather, what I will say to you here is based not on scholarship or Major League Baseball, but on pop culture. Don't be fooled by your professors and those show-off intellectuals you'll meet at cocktail parties - pop culture provides the masses with a never ending source of wisdom and deep thought. Season Four of Project Runway immediately comes to mind.

Thus, I want to share with you something that made your old Mommy cry while watching ER in the Spring of 2002. You were not one for what you called "the doctor shows" because they made you "sad". So, I watched this by myself, the episode where the geeky but good and kind doctor Mark Greene dies of a brain tumor in Hawaii. Suffering from his disease symptoms, but at peace in his Hawaiian vacation rental, Mark was laying down resting and hanging out with his 15 year old daughter Rachel. They both knew it was close to the end, so Mark took the opportunity to tell her what he wanted her to be after he's gone. He told her in a weak but firm voice:

"Be generous."

Indeed, good advice, for you and anyone, really. Give back, Moll'. Give without needing to be acknowledged. Give because it feels good. Give what you have learned. Give love. Give, be generous.

The other pop culture item is from the main chorus of a song you adored when you were in elementary school. We heard it again on that road trip to Tahoe we took with Noah and he yelled out from the back seat, "OH! I LOOOOVE THIS SONG!" The lyrics are romantic in theme, but the essential message is one that I embrace in my full heart when I think of you, my girl, my child, my Molly Rose:

"I love you, always forever
Near and far, closer together"

And, I do love you, my beautiful daughter. Go forth into the world knowing that you have this never ending love from me.

Congratulations, Molly. I am so proud of you.

I love you,
Mom

Comments

[chris]

Such a beautiful letter. I have four short years left to parent my oldest (48 months!?!)

Choose kindness. That is the advice I always seem to be giving my kid. I think I am going to add Be Generous.

[Tonya]

OK, you got me crying YET AGAIN. I've been all teary lately (unlike me!) because Nate's in Navy Boot Camp and I miss him like crazy. (It's a mom-thing...) And then who knows what these next 6 years hold that he's signed up for? Damn, I sure wish he could have found a passion in college, but it wasn't to be.

Grace, this is beautiful, and Molly is equally as lucky to have you as her mom as you are to have her as your daughter.

[v]

Congratulations to Molly! I love your letter to her. It's good to read your writing again.

[Kalyn]

What a beautiful post. I do think blogging from the heart like this must be much harder than simply sharing the food you love like I do, but right now I have tears in my eyes, remembering that episode of ER and thinking about how we can find good life lessons in the most unlikely places. And I think Molly is very lucky to have a mom like you!

[mamadaisy]

Bah! you made me cry at work. damn you, woman!

major congratulations to Molly! Machu Pichu is an excellent way to start young adulthood.

[Divina]

Congratulations to Molly and her proud family!!!

[Lin]

A beautiful letter to a beautiful daughter.

[Bonnie]

I wrote a letter to my son when he was 4 months old, telling him what he had brought into my life. I then made a copy and gave it to him on his 28th birthday -- it was a powerful message and I am so glad I took the time to do it. I only regret I didn't do the same for my daughter who was born 19 months later.....
Thank you for sharing your letter to Molly, Grace -- truly beautiful and heartwarming

[daxohol]

Grace! I'm also in a state of blogger reinvention. So once again, your not alone. I've been gun-shy too about what to write...it's why I've been very sparse over the last couple years...but I refuse to let go completely, so - true to my improv theatre roots, I decided I am going to go BOLDLY forward along with my new inspiration, and see where it takes me. I just miss this medium my expression - It felt so good back when it was in full bloom (2004-06)...

[Al_Pal]

*sniff* Really beautiful post. Well done.
Congrats to Molly -- and to you and her dads!
;D

[shaunna]

ah, grace... what wonderful words. the post (and) the letter.

[landismom]

Great post. I love "Choose Kindness" too--I'm adopting that one, chris.

[jennyalice]

What a beautiful letter Grace. and what a great idea.

I am working on "Give without remorse, regret or haste" and "Do good works with my time; for my family, for my friends and for my community." (that's from my 40 by 40 list).

I am trying to remind myGirl to Be Kind. And though I believe that generally means gentle hands and thoughtful words, I also think kind doesn't always mean nice. It may be that she should come to her brother's defense someday, whatever action that may require.